Titan CEO Stockton Rush once said 'it's really hard to tell how far outside the box you really are' when innovating submersibles

• OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush enthused about being "outside of the box" in a talk last year.
• The maker of the doomed Titan submersible called regulations "over-the-top."

Footage has emerged of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush talking about being in uncharted waters when it came to the development of the Titan, and hailing OceanGate's work as "outside the box."

Rush died during the Titan's implosion during a dive to see the wreck of the Titanic last week.

The disaster, which claimed a total of five lives, has led to intense scrutiny of OceanGate's record on safety and Rush's many public comments downplaying the value of regulations in the development of submersibles.

During a 2022 presentation for GeekWire, Rush contrasted his development of the Titan with standards for manned submersibles laid out by groups like the American Society for Mechanical Engineers.

"These programs are over-the-top in their rules and regulation, but they had nothing with carbon fiber," he said, speaking about the ASME's Safety Standard for Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy.

Rush's vessel, the Titan, was unusual in the field of manned submersibles for the use of carbon fiber in its hull, rather than the more standard titanium.

"When you're outside the box, it's really hard to tell how far outside the box you really are," Rush continued. "And we were pretty far out there."

He went on to laud "breaking things" in the process of innovation, describing how he tested a submersible chamber at the University of Washington to the point of destruction.

"If you're not breaking things, you're not innovating," he said. "If you're operating within a known environment as most submersible manufacturers do, they don't break things."

The university has since clarified that it had collaborated on testing research for an earlier vessel, the Cyclops-1, but had no part in the development of the Titan.

The GeekWire talk was far from the first time Rush appeared to disparage regulation in favor of innovation. In a 2019 article, Rush said that the field is "obscenely safe" and that regulation was holding back progress.

And in 2021, Rush told a YouTuber that he knew he'd "broken some rules" in using carbon fiber for the hull.

The company has also been transparent about the fact that it didn't attempt to classify the Titan on the basis that hitting industry benchmarks would slow its development.

OceanGate received multiple warnings from industry peers ahead of last week's tragedy.

In a 2018 lawsuit, a former employee raised concerns about "quality control and safety" that he said could put passengers in danger.

Industry group the Marine Technology Society also expressed concerns, and in 2019 a submarine expert warned about a hull defect, imploring Rush to do more testing on the sub.