My safety fears were BLASTED by Titan boss, expert claims

AN EXPERT has claimed his safety fears were dismissed by Titan sub boss Stockton Rush – who blasted him for “stopping innovation”.

Rob McCallum was threatened with legal action after he told the OceanGate CEO that he was putting his passengers in danger.

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The deep-sea exploration expert begged Rush to get a safety certificate for the sub before giving rides to paying customers – but was ignored.

The BBC reports that Rob told Rush: “You are wanting to use a prototype un-classed technology in a very hostile place.

“As much as I appreciate entrepreneurship and innovation, you are potentially putting an entire industry at risk.

Rush replied that his “engineering focused, innovative approach flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy – but that is the nature of innovation”.

He said: “We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often.

“I take this as a serious personal insult.

Rob said: “I think you are potentially placing yourself and your clients in a dangerous dynamic

“In your race to Titanic you are mirroring that famous catch cry: ‘She is unsinkable.'”

McCallum said:

Rush previously said that he had “broken some rules” to make the Titan sub.

In a 2021 video, he said: “I’ve broken some rules to make this, I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. 

“The carbon fibre and titanium there’s a rule where you don’t do that – well, I did.

“It’s picking the rules that you break that are the ones that will add value to others and add value to society – and that to me is about innovation.”

It comes after a tycoon who turned down tickets on the doomed Titan sub revealed how boss Stockton Rush bragged it was “safer than crossing the street”.

Canadian investigators are now travelling to Newfoundland to gather evidence and interview crew from Titan’s mothership Polar Prince.

The Odysseus 6 remotely-operated vehicle is being sent down to the debris site – with the cost of the search operation expected to run into millions of dollars for the US Coast Guard aone.

The Pentagon used a C-130 Hercules, a turboprop P-3 Orion and jet-powered P-8 Poseidon sub hunters in the hunt for the doomed sub.

Naval historian Norman Polar said the search, involving several countries and businesses, is unprecedented.

Titan vanished less than two hours into its descent to the Titanic wreckage on Sunday.

Search crews had been desperately looking for the vessel in the Atlantic after it lost communication with just 96 hours of life support.

The sub failed to resurface later that afternoon – with its final “ping” to mothership Polar Prince placing the sub directly above the ruins.

In a haunting interview last year, Mr Rush told how his main worry was that the sub – steered by a gaming controller – would get trapped under the water.

He also claimed there should be “limits” to safety precautions.

“You know, at some point, safety is just a pure waste,” he told CBS.

“I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question.

“I think I can do this just as safely while breaking the rules.”

And in clip from last year shared on YouTube, Mr Rush can be heard saying he had “broken some of the rules” to make the sub.

He said the windows became “squeezed” because of the water pressure on descent, and a “warning” goes off if the vessel is going to “fail”.

OceanGate confirmed Mr Rush and his four passengers had died on the sub after a “catastrophic” implosion.

One of the company’s co-founders was doing a TV interview when he learned that debris had been discovered by rescue crews.

Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the US Coast Guard, said the debris was  1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic – and “consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber”.

The debris – including a landing frame and the tail cone – must now be raised 3,800m from the sea floor to uncover how the sub met its violent end.

Dr Dale Molé, the former director of undersea medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, revealed what would have happened during the crew’s tragic final moments.

A violent implosion would have torn away the rear cover, landing frame, and ripped apart the sub’s hull – crushing the passengers inside.

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