- The CBS reporter David Pogue says he doesn't think OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was a con man.
- Pogue rode on OceanGate's Titan submersible — which imploded during a dive last week — in 2022.
A CBS correspondent who rode on the Titan submersible last year doesn't think the submersible's inventor, Stockton Rush, was a con man.
David Pogue profiled Rush and the Titan for CBS, spending nine days with the crew in July 2022. His segment aired in November and got another massive wave of interest last week after the Titan imploded during a dive to the Titanic shipwreck. All five people on board at the time — including Rush — died.
In a New York Magazine story published Tuesday, Pogue published more of his observations from the July 2022 trip while also digging into some questions that have since surfaced about Rush.
Rush "relished playing the maverick genius; more than once, he compared his role as industry disruptor to Steve Jobs and Elon Musk," Pogue wrote.
Rush started his submersible company, OceanGate, in 2009. His cavalier approach toward developing the submersible has come into the spotlight after it emerged that he had received multiple safety warnings from experts.
"But I don't think Rush was a con man. He genuinely believed in his design — enough to trust it with his own life many times over," Pogue continued in the New York Magazine story.
Pogue wrote that he witnessed a "serious culture of safety" while profiling Rush and his crew.
"There are endless checklists, sub inspections, twice-daily mandatory briefings, and a three-strikes rule: If they find three things amiss — even tiny things like low battery power in a flashlight or a missing nut on the platform — they cancel the dive," Pogue wrote.
OceanGate's submersible made three trips down to the Titanic shipwreck before its final, ill-fated dive on June 18.
The US Coast Guard said on Sunday that it had convened its highest investigative board to study the Titan's implosion.
"My primary goal is to prevent a similar occurrence by making the necessary recommendations to enhance the safety of the maritime domain worldwide," Capt. Jason Neubauer, the chief investigator, told the media.
Representatives for Pogue and OceanGate did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.