Key Points
Deep-sea experts criticized OceanGates choices, from Titans carbon-fiber construction to Rushs public disdain for industry regulations, which he believed stifled innovation..
(The former employees who spoke to WIRED have asked not to be named for fear of being sued by the families of those who died aboard the vessel.) Most of all, the documents show how Rush, blinkered by his own ambition to be the Elon Musk of the deep seas, repeatedly overstated OceanGates progress and, on at least one occasion, outright lied about significant problems with Titans hull, which has not been previously reported...
Even when OceanGate decided to change the domes in the final design from carbon fiber to titanium, Rush didnt commission models to test the interactions between the new materials; one former employee who was familiar with Rushs decision says the CEO balked at the high price tag...
Later, though, when Green saw how Rush was describing the system to the publicthe CEO claimed it could detect the sound of micro-buckling in the subs hull way before it failshe wrote a concerned email to an OceanGate employee, reported here for the first time...
The company that made the original titanium components told WIRED that it did not make new rings for Rush, and three former employees say that OceanGate did, in fact, salvage and reuse the originals...
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