- The CEO of OceanGate Expeditions defended his submersible's safety on Reddit in 2020.
- Stockton Rush, who died along with four others when the Titan imploded last week, said "I trust it."
The CEO of the company behind the submersible that imploded last week on route to the wreckage of the Titanic had defended the vessel's safety in a 2020 Reddit Q&A.
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, was asked on the "RMS_Titanic" subreddit in May 2020 whether the submersible was safe, and what depths it could go to.
He replied: "4,000meters. Yes, I trust it. I especially trust our extensive testing and real time acoustic and strain monitoring system."
Rush added: "We can detect any anomaly well before we reach a critical pressure. We know of no other sub that is so well instrumented."
Rush, who was also the vessel's pilot, was one of five passengers on the Titan when it imploded last week, killing everyone on board.
It is not clear if the sub's safety equipment did detect any issues before the implosion. Experts say the implosion would have likely killed those on board instantly.
But "Titanic" director James Cameron, who is also a submersible expert, said that the passengers likely knew something was wrong before the disaster due to the submersible's sensors.
Rush was answering Reddit questions ahead of the Titan's planned trips to the Titanic in 2021, in posts first reported by LBC.
In his responses he said the company would, from 2021, have a "series of week-long missions to the wreck of the RMS Titanic."
He also promised "multiple missions performed over several years" in order to fully document the wreckage.
The Titan successfully visited the wreckage at least three times: in July 2021, in August 2021, and again in July 2022.
But there have also been plenty of reports of failed trips. This includes CBS News' David Pogue going on the submersible in 2021 when, he said, the trip was canceled after it reached 37 feet due to an equipment malfunction.
Another diver who eventually reached the wreckage in the Titan described multiple aborted attempts and described it as a "suicide mission" that he was lucky to survive.
Other would-be passengers also detailed trips being delayed or rescheduled.
The Titan trip that began on June 18, 2023, lost contact with its mothership an hour and 45 minutes into its dive, sparking a desperate search to find the vessel.
But days later the US Coast Guard announced that debris found in the search area indicated that the vessel had imploded, and that the five people on board had died.
Multiple experts came forward after the submersible went missing to say that they had raised safety concerns regarding the vessel, including with Rush himself.
Old interviews have also surfaced of Rush dismissing safety regulations as hampering innovation. He and OceanGate repeatedly said the vessel was safe.
Experts also told Insider's Tom Porter that the submersible avoided having to work under many safety rules by operating in international waters.