A friend of the OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush has accused him of murder in the wake of the death of all 5 people on board the Titan sub, includish Rush himself.
He described Rush as having created a ‘mouse trap for billionaires’.
The heartbreaking news that the 5 people on board the vessel are believed to have sadly died broke last month. It came after debris was found that was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”
The sub, named Titan, was carrying 5 people down to the bottom of the ocean to see the Titanic’s shipwreck in real life, which is located 3,800m below sea level, and is 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The trip is thought to have cost £195,000 per head.
It vanished on the morning of June 18 after losing contact with its mothership MV Polar Prince roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes into the vessel’s 2-hour descent.
On board the sub was Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company who own the vessel and conduct the tourist trips. Alongside him was the British billionaire Hamish Harding, British-based Pakistani millionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman. The fifth person on board was Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French submersible pilot who was considered one of the world’s leading experts on the Titanic.
When the underwater vessel lost contact, the search effort hugely ramped up after authorities estimated that they were quickly running out of oxygen.
An update gave authorities more hope, as an aircraft detected “underwater noises in the search area.”
“As a result, ROV (remotely operated vehicle) operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises. Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue,” the Coast Guard tweeted.
It was additionally reported that a second aircraft with underwater detection abilities detected “banging sounds.”
However, in the wake of the heartbreaking discovery of the debris, the Coast Guard confirmed that these sounds were likely just ‘background ocean noise’.
Rear Admiral John Mauger explained to Sky News: “We’ve taken that information and shared it with top leading experts from the US Navy and the Canadian Navy, and they’re working on the analysis of that information, they’re continuing to work on the analysis of that information.
“The initial reports is that there’s a lot of the sounds that were generated were from background ocean noise, but they continue to … look for all available information there.”
OceanGate, who ran the expedition, released a statement addressing the heartbreaking loss.
“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” it began.
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans.
“Our hearts are with these 5 souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
Debris from the sub were brought ashore in Newfoundland, giving a first look at the remains of the vessel.
Pictures from the port show the debris covered in tarp as they are transferred onto trucks to be taken away.
The US Coast Guard announced that they have also recovered ‘presumed human remains’ from “within the wreckage” of the sub.
However, the latest update comes from Karl Stanley, a submarine operator and close friend of Stockton Rush, who he has accused of murder. Stanley was one of the first people to ever go aboard the doomed Titan sub, and he recently opened up to 60 Minutes Australia about how he really felt about the tragedy, via the Mail Online.
Stanley accused Rush of “definitely knew it was going to end like this,” adding: “He quite literally and figuratively went out with the biggest bang in human history that you could go out with.”
“Who was the last person to murder two billionaires at once, and have them pay for the privilege?” Stanley added.
He suggested that Rush was willing to risk the lives of his clients in order to “go down in history.”
Describing the “loud gunshot-like noises” he heard on his own trip in the Titan sub, Stanley said he had “no doubt” that the tragedy was caused by the area involving “the carbon fiber tube,” that he had warned Rush about.
