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Karl Stanley rode inside OceanGate’s Titan in April 2019.
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He raised concerns with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush about the ship’s hull shortly after that trip.
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Much to his surprise, a report this week contained more information related to his dive in the Titan.
An early passenger on OceanGate’s Titan submersible didn’t realize how close he was to the “catastrophic” failure of the vessel’s fate in 2023 until a year after the incident.
In April 2019, Karl Stanley, another diving expert, joined his colleague, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, near the Bahamas to dive in an early iteration of the vessel Titan.
Stanley, Rush, and two other passengers managed to dive more than 12,000 feet – a depth that closes in on the wreck of the Titanic, which sits at the bottom of the Atlantic at about 12,500 feet.
But Stanley went away with fear.
In emails shared with Business Insider, Stanley warned Rush of a possible hull defect after hearing a cracking sound.
“I think there’s a flaw in that hull next to that meat, it’s only going to get worse,” Stanley wrote to Rush in May 2019.
Stanley urged Rush to take precautions and carry out further tests on the vessel before taking on passengers. But those warnings were largely ignored.
An investigative report published by Wired on June 11 – almost a year after the fateful Titan voyage – revealed that the CEO of OceanGate Rush was determined to cut costs to build his ship and repeatedly played down warnings from his colleagues.
Stanley told BI in a recent interview that he didn’t know the extent of the hull problem — and how close he was to danger during his dive with Rush — until he read the Wired piece.
Emails between OceanGate’s CEO and Stanley shared with BI last year showed Rush dismissing Stanley’s concerns with the Titan’s hull. The CEO wrote at the time that “one data point from experience is not enough to determine the integrity of the hull.”
However, according to the Wired report, Rush was also concerned about a “loud noise of the hull making deep noise” around the time of the trip with Stanley.
According to the report, the problems with the vessel were not fully addressed until two months after the Stanley’s sinking and just three weeks before the Titanic was due to sail.
An inspection revealed a crack in the Titan’s hull that an unnamed OceanGate pilot Rush described as “pretty serious,” Wired reported.
An internal report later viewed by Wired revealed an area of at least 11 square feet where the layers of the carbon fiber hull had separated. According to Wired, this flaw caused Rush to delay the trip to the Titanic and build another sunken titan.
‘The more evidence that comes to light the more my position is strengthened’
Stanley told BI that he was surprised to read a Wired report revealing more information about his 2019 dive with Rush.
“The doomsday clock got a little closer to midnight,” Stanley said. “I knew the hull wasn’t doing great, but the [report on the] Visible damage blew my mind.”
Stanley said that as more information comes out about the Titan incident, he is frustrated with those close to Rush, who he felt could have done more to stop the CEO from giving in to his own ambitions.
“The more evidence that comes to light, the more my position is strengthened,” he said. “Stockton knew on some level how this would end.”
On June 18, 2023, a little over four years after Stanley’s voyage, Rush and four other passengers, who paid up to $250,000 each for a seat inside the Titan, joined the historic shipwreck.
Less than two hours into the dive, the Titan lost communication with its mothership on the surface, prompting a massive international search and rescue effort.
Five days later, US Coast Guard officials announced that the Titan had sunk due to a “catastrophic loss of pressure chamber.” All five passengers, including Rush, were killed instantly.
A federal investigation into the explosion continues to this day.
An ego-driven enterprise
A spokesman for OceanGate, which ceased all operations shortly after the Titan disaster, could not be reached for comment.
Guillermo Söhnlein, the co-founder of OceanGate who left the company in 2013, has maintained some communication with Rush but told BI in an interview that he can’t say if he told the CEO to do anything different because he didn’t always. aware of what was happening in the company after he left.
While he agreed that Rush’s Titan project was driven by ego, Söhnlein said the trait comes with any ambitious innovator, especially in the field of exploration.
“Karl built two of his reps in a garage,” said Söhnlein, who spoke with Stanley recently. “Talk about showing your ego. He’s now one of the most experienced sub-pilots in the world.”
Stanley continues to operate his tourist boat in Honduras. He told BI that last year was his 25th year in business.
“I just happened after a 4 hour dive,” Stanley wrote to BI on Thursday. “So I think things are going well.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
