CNN Obit On CEO Who Died In Titanic Sub Includes Brutally Prophetic Clips Of Him Mocking Risk
A CNN package on OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush featured multiple clips that were prophetic in Rush’s dismissal of risks involved in his sub’s deep-sea exploration.
Rush was the CEO of OceanGate, the company behind the tragic voyage that ended his life and the lives of four others — British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son, Suleman, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet — as they attempted to descend to the wreck of the Titanic.
On Friday morning’s edition of CNN News Central, CNN’s Nick Watt narrated a package on Rush that featured friends praising him as a “Captain Kirk” figure — as well as several famous-last-words-esque clips in which the CEO mocked the risks and extolled the “off-the-shelf” construction of his sub:
NICK WATT: His attitude towards strict rules and regulations, according to his many interviews, they stifle innovation.
STOCKTON RUSH (INTERVIEW CLIP): I’d like to be remembered as an innovator. I think it was General MacArthur said, you’re remembered for the rules you break. And, you know, I’ve broken some rules to make this, I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering.
NICK WATT: Before taking a sub down to another treacherous wreck in 2018, he said this.
STOCKTON RUSH (INTERVIEW CLIP): We always have a number of divers who tell us, “You can’t do this.” It’s dangerous if you’re a diver. We we look at submarines as being an armored vehicle.
NICK WATT: Rush was no wild-eyed amateur. He graduated Princeton with a degree in aerospace engineering, then worked on the F-15 program as a flight test engineer. He founded Ocean Gate in 2009.
STOCKTON RUSH (INTERVIEW CLIP): At some point, safety just is pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point you’re going to take some risk. And it really is a risk-reward question, I said. I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.
NICK WATT: On board Titan just last November, he explained his maverick methods to CBS News.
STOCKTON RUSH (INTERVIEW CLIP): We can use these off-the-shelf components. I got these from Camper World. We run the whole thing with this game controller.
NICK WATT: As a child, Rush dreamed of going into space.
MIKE REISS: He wanted to be an astronaut. And I think when he didn’t become an astronaut, he set his sights down below.
NICK WATT: He called it the deep disease. In an interview with Smithsonian magazine, said he explored the deep for the future of humanity.
STOCKTON RUSH (INTERVIEW CLIP): You know, when we’ve, if we trash this planet, the best lifeboat for mankind is underwater.
Watch above via CNN News Central.
