Stockton Rush's Tragic Link to the Creator of the Titanic

The creator of a submersible craft that suffered a "catastrophic implosion" on a trip to the wreckage of the Titanic has a tragic link to the designer of the infamous ship.

Stockton Rush, the 61-year-old chief executive of the company OceanGate, who designed the submersible named Titan, was one of five people killed when it imploded on a trip to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The small vessel descended into the depths off the Atlantic coast on Sunday hoping to reach the wreckage at about 12,500 below sea level and 435 miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland.

The voyage began on Sunday morning but lost contact with surface ship Polar Prince about an hour and 45 minutes into the journey.

Expeditions to the Titanic wreckage site were a passion project for Rush who helped design the Titan, which according to OceanGate was only one of five vessels in the world able to journey that far down.

But some inquisitive minds did some digging on Reddit and realized he had an eerie connection to the man who masterminded the creation of the Titanic, which was the largest ship in the world at the time of its construction in the early 20th century.

Thomas Andrews Jr. was an Irish-born businessman and naval architect. He was one of 2,200 passengers on board her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City and one of the 1,500 people who died when she hit an iceberg in 1912 and split in two before sinking into the Atlantic Ocean.

Posters on Reddit realized that Andrews and Rush were linked because they were listed on the Wikipedia page "List Of Inventors Killed By Their Own Designs."

Somewhat spookily, Rush's wife, Wendy, is related to two victims of the sinking of the Titanic.

She is the great-great-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus, according to The New York Times, first-class passengers on the Titanic who refused to board a life boat until all women and children had been ushered to safety,

A fictionalized version of the couple portrayed in James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic are seen lying in bed together as water enters their cabin.

Despite their similar fates, in some ways Rush and Andrews couldn't have been more different.

Andrews had argued that the Titanic had to have a sufficient number of lifeboats on board for all passengers and crew, among other safety measures, but was shut down by the president of the White Star Line who funded the Titanic build, Bruce Ismay.

He had "protested that they already had more than the legally required number of lifeboats (16) and the extra boats simply would clutter up the beautiful open expanse of the upper deck, where first-class passengers would want to stroll," according to Scientific American.

But the story was very different for Rush, who allegedly ignored repeated concerns about the safety of his vessel.

There had been multiple reports of technical issues with Titan before its descent, and other comments about Rush's attitude towards safety also separated him from Andrews.

He touted the benefits of "breaking the rules" and argued that "at some point, safety just is pure waste" during an interview with CBS correspondent David Pogue in 2022.

Rush's company, OceanGate, also argued against outside safety testing of Titan in a 2019 blog post, asserting that it would be "anathema to rapid innovation." The company also claimed that its "real-time hull health monitoring" would be able to determine "if the hull is compromised well before situations become life-threatening."

But in 2018 a group of more than three dozen experts from the Marine Technology Society had sent a letter to Rush, trying to warn him of "catastrophic" consequences if he continued to ignore "the safeguards that protect all submersible occupants."

In that same year, OceanGate was sued by former employee and sumbmersible pilot, David Lochridge. The lawsuit alleged that passengers were being subjected "to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible" because of "OceanGate's refusal to conduct critical, non-destructive testing of the experimental design of the hull."

The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed on Thursday that the Titan had suffered a "catastrophic implosion" and search efforts revealed pieces of debris discovered about 1,600 feet away from the Titanic's wreckage.

Other passengers on board were 58-year-old British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding; 77-year-old French maritime expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet; British-Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48; and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood.