Titanic Sub Latest: Cameraman Exposes OceanGate CEO's Chilling Remark, "You're Dead Anyway"

Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, was one of five people (British businessman Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son, Suleman; French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet) who died onboard the infamous implosion of the Titan, a private submersible designed to explore the Titanic ruins. According to a documentary cameraman, two years before the ill-fated expedition, Rush made some "very strange" comments to him about what would happen if they got lost in the ocean while inside the vessel. 

Brian Weed was working for the Discovery Channel's Expedition Unknown TV show in May 2021. While making the documentary, he boarded the same Titan sub that imploded in June. In a new interview with Insider, Weed discusses a "very strange" and rather chilling conversation he had with Rush, while on board. He claims he even made a joke about the possibility of dying in it. 

"He said: 'Well, there's four or five days of oxygen on board, and I said, 'What if they don't find you?' And he said, 'Well, you're dead anyway,'" Weed recalls. "It felt like a very strange thing to think, and it seemed to almost be a nihilistic attitude toward life or death out in the middle of the ocean."

Weed also noted that Rush's attitude towards "basic safety" was "cavalier," making him feel "uneasy" from the start. He added that there were mechanical and communication issues on the test dive and it ultimately had to be aborted. 

"That whole dive made me very uncomfortable with the idea of going down to Titanic depths in that submersible," he said. Weed ended up pulling out of the documentary due to safety concerns and it was eventually cancelled. 

In a separate 2022 BBC documentary about OceanGate a malfunction was noted. In one scene Scott Griffith, a former pilot of OceanGate, lost control of the sub during a dive, with passengers spinning around for hours. "There's something wrong with my thrusters. I'm thrusting and nothing is happening," Griffith says, per the Mirror. 

On Thursday, OceanGate announced its closure. "OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations," the simple statement on their website reads.