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OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said glue holding doomed Titan sub's carbon-fibre hull together was ‘like peanut butter’
The design, Stockton Rush said, was "pretty simple, but if we mess it up, there's not a lot of room for recovery"
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said the glue holding the Titan submersible’ carbon-fibre hull together was "like peanut butter,” adding that it was thicker than Elmer's glue. He also described it as being “pretty simple.” Stockton opened up about the vessel’s titanium ring and carbon-fibre hull in a video on OceanGate’s YouTube channel in 2018.
The design, Stockton said, was "pretty simple, but if we mess it up, there's not a lot of room for recovery." Stockton, along with British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul Henry Nargeolet, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, after as a result of a catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible.
The Titan’s hull was constructed with aerospace-grade carbon fibre, even though submersible hulls are typically made with solid metals like steel or titanium. Several emails and messages between experts and Stockton went viral after his death, revealing that he dismissed repeated warnings that the submersible was not safe. It has also been reported that Stockton employed college-aged interns to design the electrical systems for the Titan.
Stockton allegedly dismissed a loud bang heard from the Titan submersible. He allegedly suggested that most deep-sea vessels made noises.
On an episode of the BBC’s ‘The Travel Show’ last year, Stockton was seen warning passengers that the voyage is dangerous. "It's an open book here," Stockton said while speaking with workers and the passengers. "We want everyone going into this fully informed. This is an experimental sub. This is a dangerous environment."
Stockton later addressed the loud bang heard while the Titan was on the surface, saying it was nothing to be concerned about. "Not a soothing sound, but on the surface," he said. "Almost every deep-diving sub makes a noise at some point." It is unclear where the sound came from.
Stockton once said that the doomed Titan submersible was struck by lightning, getting severely damaged in the process. The incident took place during a test dive in the Bahamas in 2018. "Fortunately, it was not a direct strike. A direct strike to the carbon fibre probably would have taken us totally out," Stockton said in the interview. According to an OceanGate post, the vessel had “sustained lightning damage that affected over 70% of its internal systems.”
