OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said he would ‘buy a congressman’ to bypass Coast Guard: ex-employee
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said he “would buy a congressman” to make any problems regarding the doomed Titan submersible’s expedition “go away,” a former employee testified on Friday.
Matthew McCoy, a Coast Guard veteran, said Stockton made the shocking claim to him in 2017 — and also said the company would bypass any regulatory concerns by going through the Bahamas and Canada.
“He said, ‘I would buy a congressman’ and make, basically, the problems … go away at that point in time,” McCoy said during the final day of the hearings on the deadly 2023 submarine implosion.
The Coast Guard had tried to shut him down in California, Rush also said during the conversation.
McCoy said he resigned shortly after.
“That will stand in my mind for the rest of time,” he added. “I’ve never had anybody say that to me directly, and I was aghast and basically, after that, I resigned from the company.”
The Titan imploded during a deep-sea descent to the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic Ocean, killing all five people aboard, including Rush.
The Coast Guard opened a public hearing earlier this month as part of an investigation into the cause of the maritime disaster.
McCoy testified that OceanGate did not plan to certify or register the Titan, and said he didn’t believe there were any professional engineers or a safety officers on its team, according to reports.
There was no formal system in place for investigating employee complaints or concerns at the Washington-based company, McCoy added in his testimony.
At the start of the hearings, the Coast Guard officials said the submersible had not been independently reviewed — which is standard practice.
Also killed on the expedition was Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French explorer and Titanic expert; Hamish Harding, a British businessman and pilot; and Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani businessman and his son, Suleman Dawood.
Rush was known for his “concerning” temperament and becoming defensive, McCoy also said.
The co-founder, a descendant of signers of the Declaration of Independence, sought to follow in his ancestor’s famous footsteps, his longtime friend Karl Stanley said during testimony on Tuesday.
“[Rush] knew that eventually it was going to end like this and he wasn’t going to be held accountable,” Stanley said.
Former OceanGate Operations Director David Lochridge said he frequently clashed with Rush and the “whole idea behind the company was to make money.”
“There was very little in the way of science,” Lochridge said.
The public hearing began on Sept. 16 and concluded Friday.
OceanGate suspended its operations following the deadly wreck, and said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board investigations since they began.
With Post wires
