San Francisco: A travel writer, who was set to travel on the Titan submersible that imploded and killed all five people on board, has claimed that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush once told him the company used cut-price Boeing carbon fiber, that was past its airplane shelf life, for the vessel’s hull.
Travel Weekly’s editor-in-chief, Arnie Weissmann, wrote in a series of articles that he was due to board the Titan submersible for an expedition to the Titanic in May but the trip was stopped by weather.
“Only one thing concerned me: He (Rush) said he had gotten the carbon fiber used to make the Titan at a big discount from Boeing because it was past its shelf-life for use in airplanes,” Weissmann wrote in one of his columns in Travel Weekly.
Weissmann asked Rush if that weren’t a problem.
“He replied that those dates were set far before they had to be and that Boeing and even NASA had participated in the design and testing of the Titan,” the travel writer claimed.
Boeing has denied the involvement, and NASA said it only served in a consulting capacity, according to reports.
“Boeing was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it. Boeing has found no record of any sale of composite material to OceanGate or its CEO,” the company said in a statement.
The revelation came as Canadian authorities Saturday launched a probe into the fatal occurrence involving the Canadian-flagged vessel Polar Prince and the privately-operated submersible Titan.
Rush, one of the five passengers killed after an “instantaneous implosion” of the Titan submersible, had once said that he had “broken some rules” to make the deep-sea submarine.
In comments to Mexican travel vlogger Alan Estrada in 2021, Rush evoked US General Douglas MacArthur as saying, “You’re remembered for the rules you break.”
“I’ve broken some rules to make this (Titan). I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering behind me,” Rush was quoted as saying in the video that has now surfaced on social media after the tragedy.
IANS