‘Murder’: In Bonkers Interview Close Friend Claims Titan Sub Owner Created a ‘Mouse Trap For Billionaires’

A close friend of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who perished in the Titan submersible disaster last month, compared the submersible to a “mouse trap for billionaires” and accused Rush of murdering his passengers in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia.

During the interview on Sunday, Rush’s friend Karl Stanley — a submarine operator who was one of the first passengers on the Titan submersible — claimed, “He definitely knew it was going to end like this.”

Stanley said, “He quite literally and figuratively went out with the biggest bang in human history that you could go out with, and, who was the last person to murder two billionaires at once, and have them pay for the privilege?”

He went on to suggest that “Stockton was designing a mouse trap for billionaires” and that the OceanGate CEO was happy to risk the lives of his passengers to go down in history.

Asked whether Rush “had a death wish,” Stanley said, “The only question in my mind, the only question is when. He was risking his life and his customers’ lives to go down in history. He’s more famous now than anything else he would have ever done.”

Stanley told 60 Minutes Australia that he became concerned about the submersible when he heard “loud gunshot-like noises” every few minutes during a descent with Rush.

“That’s a heck of a sound to hear when you’re that far under the ocean in a craft that has only been down that deep once before,” he said.

While Stanley warned Rush that he believed “there is an area of the hull that is breaking down” and that it would “only get worse,” Rush dismissed his friend’s concerns.

“I literally painted a picture of his wrecked sub at the bottom and even that wasn’t enough,” Stanley claimed, concluding, “There’s no doubt in my mind that it was the carbon fiber tube that was the mechanical part that failed.”

Rush perished on June 18 after the Titan submersible imploded during a descent to the wreckage of the Titanic. Four others were also killed in the disaster, including two wealthy businessmen and a 19-year-old student.

Watch above via 60 Minutes Australia.