The Big Flop - Oceangate: A Flop of Titanic Proportions with Jake Cornell and Noah Miller | 49

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Billionaire Stockton Rush III dreamt of exploring the Titanic. Only problem? It's really freaking hard to get to. So he pieced together the world's shoddiest submersible built from Playstation parts and promised rich tourists a view of the Titanic for the price of $250,000. Less than two hours into the dive, Rush's dream quite literally imploded... taking 4 people with him. At least, according to sonar readings, Rush really went out with a bang.Jake Cornell (Hey Big Guy, Man & Woman) and comedian and former member of the Coast Guard, Noah Miller, join Misha to take a deep dive into the Oceangate disaster.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. In 2015, David Lockridge, a respectable marine operations director, you know, someone who makes sure sea vessels are safe, eagerly accepts a position at Ocean Gate, an innovative travel company. Founded by billionaire explorer Stockton Rush III, Ocean Gate's mission is to make deep sea exploration more accessible, well, to very wealthy passengers.

Sounds like a great cause. Rush is trying to do for the ocean what SpaceX is doing for space, taking folks down beneath the watery depths to view exotic sea creatures, ecological wonders, and the crown jewel of ocean exploration, the Titanic shipwreck site. After working at the company for a few years, Lockridge becomes increasingly concerned with the shoddy workmanship of their new sub, the Titan. He insists on a thorough inspection. Immediately, Lockridge sees some alarming flaws. Loose glue on some seams, twisted cables, and dangerously flammable flooring. More worrying is the acrylic viewport, a huge portal out into the abyss and a major selling point for the Taurus,

paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the chance to see the Titanic. This is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Lockridge sounds the alarm. Surely Rush will listen and even thank him for his diligence. Nope, Rush sues him instead. One thing Lockridge didn't account for, his boss is an asshole.

Stockton Rush is the CEO of Ocean Gate, a company that offers dives to the Titanic for $250,000 per person. Some people want a Ferrari, Some people buy a house. I want to go to Titanic. Submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body. We can use these off-the-shelf components.

I got these from Camperworld. It's very difficult for a submarine of that size to get to the bottom of the ocean and not implode. In the worst-case scenario, search vehicles found debris from the Titan on the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic. We are on a sinking ship From Wondery and Atwill Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time.

I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and former seaman at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today we're talking about the Titan Submersible Disaster, a flop of Titanic proportions. On our show today, we have Jake Cornell, a comedian, actor, and hilarious fellow TikToker, and we have Noah Miller, former Coast Guard worker turned comedian. Welcome to the show. Hello. Thanks, Misha.

So I guess my first question is, are we Titanic experts, like the shipwreck or the movie? We'll take either one. Considering the level of fandom that some people have towards it, I would say I'm a fan and I'm aware of it, but I would by no means say I'm an expert. You know, I feel like some people are really obsessed with Titanic and I just have like a cursory, I know there was an iceberg, I know it sank,

those sort of general vibes. That's the cliff notes for it, that's pretty good. I have to confess, I've never seen Titanic start to finish, although I think I've seen every part of it. See, I think my coming out story as a gay little boy was I got all of my friends together to sing My Heart Will Go On, and I did a little choreographed number to it, and I put it on for the school. They knew after that.

That's when everybody knew. But today's story is not about the Titanic. It's about Ocean Gate. Surprisingly, Ocean Gate isn't the cheeky nickname for the Ocean Bay scandal, it's the actual name of a sloppy company that spawned Titan, the doomed submersible that imploded last year while exploring the wreckage of its namesake, the Titanic. How poetic. When the news of the Titan's disappearance broke, the internet exploded with speculation and

hot takes, a wild mix of pity and schadenfreude followed. By the way, submersibles and submarines are sometimes used interchangeably, but there are important differences. Submarines are larger, can generate their own oxygen, can propel themselves, and can stand underwater for long periods of time, even months. But submersibles are tiny and basically just dropped into the ocean for quick exploration. It's sort of like a boat dingy situation. Exactly. So, much like the Titanic, the Titan submersible

was fated to sink because its makers were arrogant and irresponsible, to put it frankly. Many industry experts who were aware of the Titan's development tried to sound the alarm multiple times, but to no avail. Now, before I move on, I just want to mention that we understand people lost their lives in this incident, something that we will not be making light of.

However, we will be making fun of the arrogance of a certain billionaire who ignored common sense warnings and the laws of physics. Billionaires are usually a pretty safe topic there. Yeah, I think so. That billionaire in question is Ocean Gate's stubborn and maniacal founder, Richard Stockton Rush III. He sounds like a prick. I mean, Rush was born into an extremely wealthy San Francisco family.

His mom's relatives were oil and shipping magnates. His father was president of the notoriously secret men's Bohemian Club and two of Rush's ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. I mean, can you smell that musty, dank old money? Yeah, it's just like building a supervillain. Yeah, that's like a level of old money that's really crazy. Even Rush's wife descends from a storied wealthy family, the Strausses. Her great-great-grandfather was the co-owner of Macy's department store. Okay.

Amazingly and tragically, he and his wife sank in the Titanic. Wow. That's so embarrassing. That's so embarrassing. That's so embarrassing. To be a descendant of a Titanic victim and then have your husband die. That's so embarrassing. Well legend has it, they refuse to leave each other behind and we're seen holding arms on the deck as the ship went down.

And in the movie, they're the older couple embracing in bed as the water rushes around them. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. They should have done some Macy's product placement there at least though. Yeah. Anyway, back to Stockton Rush,

all the way back to his childhood. As a kid, he attends the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy and follows his dad's footsteps to Princeton, where he studies aerospace engineering. Now from an early age, Rush enjoys scuba diving in exotic locales around the globe. Wow, even just like five minutes into this, it makes so much more sense to me. Like, I don't think you should let little kids sit in first class because like, what are they going to do when they're 25?

Like, they've been writing in first class since they were, like, seven. Like, there's nothing to build towards. It's like, you can't go scuba diving when you're 10. You're going to want to go to the bottom of the Titanic and, like, a little tin can. Like, it makes... It just makes more sense now. That is the pipeline. Rush desperately wants to be an astronaut.

Well, he wants to be a space captain, like on Star Trek. Very realistic dream, obviously. Oh my God. So he learns to fly and at 19 becomes the youngest jet transport rated pilot in the world. But he lacks perfect eyesight, a prerequisite to becoming a fighter pilot, which itself is a prerequisite to becoming an astronaut.

So sorry, little boy, dreams crushed. Instead, Rush becomes a venture capital bro and continues doing typical rich people stuff like scuba diving and building experimental airplanes. Okay. By the way, if you enjoy stories about billionaires with too much time on their hands and not enough sense, please check out our episodes on Biosphere 2 and Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. Very good episodes. At the Bohemian Club, which is a super secret society run by his father, Rush regularly

performs stand-up comedy and he prides himself on never repeating a joke. No way. This is real. He prides himself on never repeating a joke? Yeah. I'm losing my mind. If none of your jokes work, then you should not repeat them. That's true.

So he's principled. I wish that's the passion he followed, but no. He chooses undersea exploration. While scuba diving in the frigid waters of the Puget Sound, Rush decides he'd rather do it in comfort and style. So he tries to buy a private submersible, but then quickly discovers the supply's too low. He's just, I'll just buy a comfy submersible.

I wouldn't have thought that was a thing that's even a market for it. quickly discovers the supply's too low. He's just, I'll just buy a comfy submersible. I wouldn't have thought that was a thing that's even a market for it. Like, do you just go on Craigslist and go to the submarine section? Like, I wouldn't have thought that was a private use area. Apparently, if you have enough money, you could buy anything. Well, instead of finding something safer to do, like collecting exotic animals or pillaging tombs or something, he decides to buy a kit and builds his own little sub. The fact that a kit is available for purchase is vastly more shocking to me than the fact that the submersibles are available.

That doesn't feel like a build at home situation. When I was a kid and I went in a pool, you learn you can take like a big bowl and put it upside down and breathe in that. I don't know if that's like the basis of submarine kits. Maybe they get a little more complicated. I'm not sure. Well, Rush putts around in his little one-person sub and then has an aha moment. Three quarters of the earth is water and most people can never explore it. Just like Richard Branson and Elon Musk

plan to make space a tourist attraction, he should do that but for the deep sea. In 2009, Rush and a business partner co-found Ocean Gate, a SpaceX for the ocean. And they buy a used five-person sub and rent it out to researchers. And in 2010, they start running excursions, And they buy a used five-person sub and rent it out to researchers. And in 2010, they start running excursions,

charging passengers between $7,500 and $40,000 per person to dive in places like Catalina, a resort island off the coast of California. Great, okay. This sounds slightly on board, because they're going way shallower than the Titanic was, right? These are just like... These are just little dives. But for $40,000,

I'm not doing off the coast of California. I need to go somewhere a little fancier than that. I hate underwater shit, and I don't know that I would go in a submersible for $40,000, let alone pay for it. I really don't enjoy the idea of doing that. So the whole thing is kind of foreign to me. Same. Well, now it's time to go a bit deeper. really don't enjoy the idea of doing that. So the whole thing is kind of foreign to me. Same. Yeah.

Well, now it's time to go a bit deeper. 12 and a half thousand feet to be precise and take people down to see the Titanic. It's a famous exotic attraction accessible only by two Russian submersibles, the Mirs, which is how Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron got down there for many research trips. It's the holy grail of sea tourism,

and Rush even has a family connection. Surely this will be the big earner he needs to get this business off of the ground. So, I mean, Jake, I know the answer for you, but Noah, is seeing the Titanic on your bucket list? Uh, not anymore, certainly. I don't think it was something I ever would have thought about doing, so I'm going to

have to say no. The footage is pretty good online, you know, just look at it there. Well, there are pesky regulations that disallow tourists in most submersibles. The limit is 150 feet below the surface. 2.4 miles would be pushing it. Because at that depth, the pressure is unimaginable. Now, while it's sort of okay if a trained crew member or military personnel die,

it's actually not okay to kill passengers. But of course, Rush believes these rules are unnecessary and hinder innovation. Shocking, right? Yeah. So, here's how he gets around that dumb innovation prohibiting problem. Ocean Gate isn't an American company. Like all of the most legitimate business ventures, it's registered in the Bahamas

and operates outside of US territory. And all of the passengers have to sign away their safety rights and come on board, not as tourists, but as quote, mission specialists. Yeah, this is like, it's just so insane. Here's a clip of Rush explaining what mission specialists do on CTV News. Travelers who come out will participate in the diets, do operate sonar, communication systems, photographs, work on data. So it's a very active experience.

I was going to say this is not just sort of watching, they're involved to a certain extent. Very much so, the individuals come out are gonna be a part of the crew. So, like an internship, where you pay to possibly die underwater. To take photos is mostly what they're doing, because they're not doing actual research, right?

Like this is purely tourism. Yeah, they just have to push random buttons to make it legit. They get a 10. purely tourism. Yeah, they just have to push random buttons to make it......legitimate. They get a 10.99 afterwards. It's... What's the most dangerous pay-to-play scenario you've ever experienced? I've been punched doing stand-up before. Although, I'm not sure if I got paid for that one, so...

By an audience member or by another stand-up? It was by an audience member. Yeah, it was by an audience member or by another stand-up? It was by an audience member. Yeah, it was by an audience member. Wow. I used to fly helicopters. Never got hurt doing that. You used to fly helicopters?

Yeah, I used to. For the Coast Guard. Oh, wow. Okay. Never felt even a little bit of danger. Stand-up is... That's the one that scares me. Well, to further evade legal trouble for Rush,

the passengers, sorry, mission specialists, don't buy tickets to see the Titanic. They have to donate large sums to Ocean Gate. And he sets the price at $105,000. Any guesses as to why that price tag? It's a Titanic fact. It has to be referenced something Titanic related, right? Mm-hmm. It's the inflation adjusted amount of a first class ticket on the Titanic. What a poet this guy is. Wow.

How poetic. There's also like in the movie, there's sort of like a class commentary about like the wealth disparity that was on the boat. So it's like you guys are obsessed enough with this movie to pay this much money to go see it. Yet like that went just right over your head. Like that is so funny. My name is Georgia King and I am thrilled to be the host of And Away We Go, a brand new travel podcast on Wondry+, where we'll be whisked away on immersive adventures all

around the world. Where we go, what we do, what we eat, drink, and listen to will all be up to my very special guests. We've got Ben Schwartz taking us on a whirlwind trip around Disneyland. We'll eat a bowl of life-changing pasta with Jimmy O'Yang in Tuscany, Italy. And how do you feel about a spot of sugaring off with Emily Hampshire in Montreal?

And away we go, we'll immerse you in some of the wonders of the world. We're gonna be seeing some yellows and vibrant oranges. And the shoes clicking against the cobblestone. If you're looking to get somebody in the mood, have them look at the Chicago skyline. You can listen to And Away We Go exclusively with Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Georgia, do you know what joy sounds like?

I think I'm hearing it right now. So Ocean Gate spends a few years buying older subs to repurpose and study. By 2015, they fully refit a submersible eventually called Cyclops 1, which can go no deeper than 1,640 feet, about an eighth of the way to the Titanic. It's about 22 feet long, nine feet wide, and eight feet tall. Cyclops One is bare bones. All of its redundant features, like duplicate control systems and separate batteries, are mixed, meaning if one system fails, good luck.

Cyclops One is also so simple, a kid could pilot it. Do you know why? It's steered by a fucking PlayStation controller. So there is a PS3 controller that acts as a combination gas pedal and steering wheel. I just am upset. I mean, nothing signals that you're willing to play with people's lives more than leaving them at the mercy of a joystick. So in 2018, Ocean Gate's new creation, the Cyclops II, is ready to launch, supposedly. It's built to reach the depths of about 13,000 feet, eight times the depth of Cyclops 1 and

just enough to reach the Titanic. Rush also renamed Cyclops 2 to Titan, both as an homage to the Titanic and to thumb his nose at another submersible company called Triton, probably to piss them off for not supporting his grand ideas. Well, that clearly went well. Showed them. But why the bad blood? Well, the submersible world is small, and Rush constantly feuds with others in the business.

His non-scientific, move fast and break things approach draws some skeptical eyes from actual scientists who are concerned that Rush is falsely advertising Ocean Gate safety standards, while refusing to allow third-party regulators to test the vessel and certify its safety. I mean, the laws of physics are immutable, unless they aren't. I just don't know how quantum mechanics work myself, so I'll have to take your word for

it. But regardless, subs, much like me, have standards. So let's compare what experts insist a safer submersible needs with what Rush thinks it should have by playing a game. Oh, God. I'm going to ask you some questions about C-worthy submersibles and whoever gets the most answers correct. We'll go on a trip to the Titanic. Fabulous.

Ha ha ha. First question. Most working submersibles are spherical and can safely fit around three people. How many people does Rush fit into his sub? Is it six? Five? Jake! Ding, ding, ding! Rush wants to fit at least five. If there's a pilot running the sub, he wants room for a guide

plus groups of friends or whole families. Movie pitch, National Lampoon presents Family Titanic Vacation. Here's the inside of the Titan with five people. I actually hate looking at that. It is so upsetting to me. It looks cozy, right? I hate that. Could you describe it for the listeners?

A nightmare. It is like a small tube that it looks like none of them can stand up all the way in. There is maybe six inches of space between two people standing on either side of it. And there are like two what look like Lenovo think pads at the front of the space. That's what I see here. And then club lighting for some reason. It does have a Berlin aesthetic to it. That's kind of interesting. Yeah.

All right. Next question. Since round subs won't comfortably work for a large group, what shape does Rush make his new sub? Like a blimp, like an oval? Yeah, oval, yeah. What is a three-dimensional oval called, an egg? No. Yeah, this is testing the limits of my geometry skills.

The only word I can think of is blimp shaped. Okay, we're going gonna give it to you. A cylinder. Okay, sure. But yeah, it's basically an underwater blimp. Yeah, yeah. Next question. Submaterials need to be strong but lightweight for buoyancy.

Usually, spherical subs are made from steel or titanium, but that's too heavy for a cylinder. What does Rush think his subs should be made from? A Stanley thermos, obviously. I'm trying to think of what's sort of strong. Titanium, steel, carbon? Oh my gosh! Am I right?

Look at Jake pulling out the answers. She's a scientist. So he does use some titanium, but he relies mostly on carbon fiber. Now, unlike titanium, which gets stronger under pressure, carbon fiber does the exact opposite. All right, next question. Rush commissions a company to make this prototype carbon fiber hull. How much time does he give them to deliver this crucial part? Three months.

I bet it was something ridiculous. Two weeks. It was six weeks. I don't understand how anyone would get in this thing. It does sound ridiculous, but I've also like ridden rides at a traveling carnival. So like I may have done it. I don't know. All right.

Instead of hardwired navigational controls and GPS, Rush plans to use a mothership waiting at the surface sending directions to the sub using what technology? Smoke signals. I'm so afraid you're going to say Bluetooth. Like, I'm so afraid it's Bluetooth. It's not Bluetooth. Misha, is it Bluetooth? I'm going to have an aneurysm.

Texting. Oh my god. Text messages. It's so fucking crazy. And that PS3 controller uses Wi-Fi to control the thrusters. The entire system runs on Bluetooth and Starlink. What kind of service are they getting down there?

I'm sorry, is there a modem in the Titanic wreckage? How does that work? It only works if the mothership is directly above the sub. So if it veers off course a little bit, no more communication. Oh my God. Terrible idea. All right, one last question. In an emergency, how do people inside

one of Rush's subs escape? I think we learned that they don't. Yeah, it seems like there would be no way to escape a submarine in an emergency, which is one of the number one reasons I'm never getting inside of one. There can't be a smaller escape pod. It's too small. I mean, based on everything you said, my guess is literally fucking jetpack.

Like, what are we doing? Yeah. They don't. Before descent, a crew seals the sub closed from the outside using over a dozen bolts. There's literally no way out. And for some reason, the sub doesn't have an emergency locator beacon. Wow. Infuriating. Wow.

So that's the game. I guess the winner is nobody. So, in 2015, Ocean Gate hires Scotsman David Lockridge as director of marine operations. Lockridge works there for a couple of years on Cyclops 1, a relatively safe sub. A couple of years later, when Cyclops 2 is almost finished, he notices a ton of those said red flags. But all of his attempts to make safety changes are shut down. Even though he's unable to convince Rush to change course during the development phase, Lockridge is allowed to perform an inspection on Titan. Some of his findings include glue that is coming loose from the seams of the ballast bags, which help control buoyancy,

thruster cables that could get tangled or caught on objects, the satellite beacon used to signal the submersible's position after surfacing is attached with zip ties, the flooring material, highly flammable. I mean, maybe they're fine with that since they'll be surrounded by water. I don't know. Incredible. And also the viewport, the little window through which

you can see the underwater graveyard, that is the Titanic, is acrylic and only meant to go no deeper than 2,700 meters. They plan to dive 4,000 meters. Fucking hell. Let's take dive 4,000 meters. Fucking hell. Let's take a look at the window. It's a foot across at max. It's so small.

What you could see out of that window that would make it worth it. I mean, there's a lot of water there. It's not appealing to me. But it's still much bigger than other submersibles. That was his pitch to people. Biggest windows. Well, during his inspection, Lockridge also examines a small piece of the carbon fiber hull and he finds tiny holes, cracks, and separating layers. So there's no telling

how many dives the sub can take before the carbon fiber breaks. Lockridge concludes that Rush's piece of crap is extremely dangerous. But guess what? Rush refuses to have it certified. So, no problem, right? This is crazy. Yeah. Rush insists the sub is too innovative, and regulators won't understand its advanced technology.

So this man had lost his mind. He had actually left reality. By the time that the catastrophe happened, he had gone into full psychosis, it seems like. Seriously. This system could only let the pilot know that something was wrong milliseconds before implosion. At that point, I don't want to know. Just let it implode.

But Rush's financial position remains very robust. He raises about $20 million from investors and ticket sales, which now cost $250,000. Industry leaders privately grow ever more concerned as Rush prepares Titan for its maiden voyage. They worry that even one major accident could sully the entire submersible business, a rising tide lifts all boats slash busted vessel sink all subs sort of mentality. And they try to email Rush and plead with him to stop putting the industry at risk. But Rush simply accuses them of gatekeeping and stifling progress and threatens to sue

them. Wow. So all of this is going on, but between 2018 and 2020, Ocean Gate holds off on diving, building and testing different versions of the carbon fiber hull. Now that doesn't mean they've suddenly become an ethical company by any stretch of the imagination. He stops pretending that the Titan is safe, appealing to rich adventurers who are bored enough to risk their lives. Rush makes his view of safety very clear, saying

quote, at some point, safety is just 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 think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules. Do we have a ballpark on how much cocaine this man is doing on a day-to-day basis? This is so ridiculous. Rush finally realizes his long-cherished dream by taking Titan down to the Titanic in 2021 and 2022, carrying archaeologists, marine biologists, and mission specialists who take turns operating

random equipment. This early success fuels his hubris, setting the stage for more dives and his eventual downfall. It's, sorry, it's just so funny to now know that there are like dozens of people across the world who have this deep, dark secret that they are one of the fucking idiots that went on this thing before it imploded. Like, they spent $200,000 to go in this tin can, and it would be so embarrassing if anyone knew. They had to update their LinkedIn after.

They had to, like, pay someone off to, like, create an alibi for where they were the week that they were on the thing. Like, that's so funny to realize right now. Well, David Pogue, a correspondent from CBS, is one of those passengers, and he immediately clocks that the Titan seems off. Let's play a clip from a conversation.

It seems like this submersible has some elements of MacGyver-y Jerryerry-riggedness. I mean, you're putting construction pipes as ballast. I don't know if I'd use that description of it, but there's certain things that you want to be buttoned down. So the pressure vessel is not MacGyver at all because that's where we work with Boeing and NASA and the University of Washington. Everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you're still gonna be safe. Nothing he just said was true, right?

Like based on what you told us, everything he said was wrong. Boeing and NASA are not involved with the Titanic. And also by the way, if Boeing is saying it's unsafe, oh. Yeah, NASA's never had a crash either, yeah. That's crazy. So the reason why he's even bringing them up, Rush does purchase expired carbon fiber

from Boeing. Irresponsible. Great. David Polk, he keeps his cool during his mission to learn about Titan. And here he is explaining how the submersible is supposed to work. The sub is attached to a huge floating platform. Motorboats drag it down the big orange ramp into the sea. The platform submerges to around 30 feet

where the water is much calmer than on the surface. Divers detach the sub from the platform and away you go in theory. That was ominous in theory. Yeah. He says in theory because it takes them several tries to dive successfully. First, the forecast is too dangerous for a Titanic dive.

So they try to dive elsewhere, and the Titan's platform malfunctions. They only get to 37 feet before having to abort. On the third diving attempt, the sub loses contact with its guiding ship. Pretty easy to do. And then finally, on the fourth, they get to see the Titanic. Jesus Christ. Four times for one trip. Do you think that deters billionaires from jumping on board?

No, they just got to brag about it more after that. So even though correspondent David Poe sees firsthand how slipshod Titan is, they end up airing a sort of puff piece saying that Rush is careful not to disturb the wreck and that diving to the Titanic is ultimately a unique and historically valuable experience. But behind the scenes, it turns out Rush's business is failing. Rush pulls off only two commercial dives in 2022, and 2023 isn't looking any better. The Titan resumes diving in May when one mission specialist, travel weekly editor Arne Weissman, risks his life for a cool story. In a blog post,

he mentions the Titan toilet, which happens to be right in front of the famous acrylic window with a privacy curtain if the need arises. Best view from a toilet on earth, says Rush according to Weissman. I thought the Titan toilet was just the Titan, so, alright. Well, isn't it just a bucket? Well, here's a photo. Let's see this. You have to be joking.

Can you describe it for our listeners? It's a toilet seat on top of a bucket. Is that what I'm seeing? That's basically what you're seeing. Wait, how long is the dive when they go down? It's like two and a half hours down. And then two and a half hours back up. Yeah. They're going to use this basically.

Like you're going to use the bathroom six inches away from your fellow passenger, fellow mission specialist, sorry. I would have to pee only though. If someone, I would lose my mind. Like if you paid $200,000 and someone's like, sorry, I'd be like, absolutely. And there's no.

Here's how they got around that. Fortunately, the food served in the galley ahead of the dive is meant to limit the need for bathroom breaks. So coffee, completely forbidden, but low residue foods are okay, like refined flour, fat, and meat. They just served them blocks of cheese for two days before. Yeah.

Wow. So just a whole bunch of constipated people going down to see the Titanic. Just smelling like bacon in a tube going down to the Titanic. Yeah. Another fun fact about taking a trip on the Titan, passengers, sorry, again, mission specialists,

are encouraged to load up their phones with songs they'd like to listen to on the Titan. Passengers, sorry, again, mission specialists, are encouraged to load up their phones with songs they'd like to listen to on the descent. But country music is banned by Rush. His name is Stockton Rush, and he doesn't like country music. Yeah, that's what's gonna save the trip, no country music. His name is a country band.

Also, Titan has no heating system. Now, I don't know if you know this, the ocean is cold. So everyone wears a flight suit, thick socks, and lots of layers. Shoes are not allowed. I just. And everyone sits on the floor. There are no seats. Now, fortunately for Weissman, he never makes the dive.

The mission is aborted after a few attempts and choppy weather. So now we're getting to the part of the story that you're probably the most familiar with. On June 18th, 2023, Rush and four other people descend down to the Titanic. And unfortunately, this will be the Titans' last dive. On board with Rush are Hamish Harding, a British billionaire explorer who's been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Shahzada Daoud, a vice chairman at a Pakistani multinational company. His 19-year-old son, Sulaimanandayud, who's sadly terrified to go.

Ah, that's terrible. And a seasoned Titanic explorer, P.H. Narajole, who's there as a tour guide. Now, the three on board who don't work for Ocean Gate have paid a quarter of a million dollars each to be there. On the morning of June 16th, the Polar Prince, a third-party vessel hired by Ocean Gate to bring the Titan to the North Atlantic Ocean, departs. Two days later, the Titan launches at around 8 a.m. Eastern time, just above the Titanic's wreckage. Christine, Suleiman's mother and her teenage daughter stay on the Polar Prince,

ready to welcome Shahzada and Suleiman back mother, and her teenage daughter stay on the Polar Prince, ready to welcome Shazada and Suleiman back when the dive is complete. Suleiman is nervous, but it's Father's Day, so he wants to make his dad proud. Oh, god. To calm himself, he brings his Rubik's Cube. He's contacted Guinness, and his dad will film him hopefully breaking a world record for deepest

Rubik's Cube solve. The descent should take about two and a half hours and the dive should finish in eight hours. At around 9 15 a.m. the mothership loses contact with the sub. At first, nobody panics. They wait for the sub to resurface at 3 p.m., but the Titan doesn't come back. The Polar Prince gives it a couple more hours, and then the U.S. Coast Guard is finally notified at 5.40 p.m. Suddenly, media outlets around the world pick up the sensational story of the missing submersible. When the countdown is set based on the Titan's 96-hour air supply, and Christine and her daughter are up there holding out hope, the media paints a vivid and very terrifying picture of the five explorers stuck inside a sedan-sized capsule, panicking, struggling, terrified. I mean, is this a claustrophobic's worst nightmare?

I can't even think about it too much. This was like, when this was happening, I was like, actively like, I can't read these stories. It's like too upsetting to me. The next day, a huge rescue attempt gets underway. A resource-heavy, multimillion dollar search is conducted by the US and Canada Coast Guard, Navy and National Guard.

At least eight search vessels are deployed, is conducted by the US and Canada Coast Guard, Navy, and National Guard. At least eight search vessels are deployed, including commercial, military, and research ships. Thousands of square miles are scoured. Surface area equals about twice the size of Connecticut. And subsurface search goes 2 and 1 half miles deep. I was not in the Coast Guard when this happened, but I remember hearing about it and thinking like, I don't think this is going to go well.

Meanwhile, the very online aren't as panicked about five rich people meeting their water doom. They laugh off the story as another F around and find out moment for the ultra wealthy. Now on June 22nd, a debris field is finally found consisting of parts of the Titan right near the Titanic. It seems that roughly 1,000 feet above the Titanic, which is about how tall the Eiffel Tower is, Rush tried to abort the dive, dropping weights to make an emergency ascent back to the surface. And then, nothing. The sub was destroyed in an instant.

The Titan is the first submersible to ever implode. But experts speculate because of the enormous pressure, the force alone would have killed anyone on board immediately. So, something went wrong that led him to do the bailout, and then in theory, moments after that, it vaporized from the pressure. Yeah, I remember hearing a theory that the people on board, they wouldn't have even felt water.

It was that quick. Jesus. I mean, that's good, I guess. This is crazy. I hate thinking about this. So Canada, the US, France, and the UK all conduct separate investigations. Analysis of the debris finds that the carbon fiber hull was most likely the cause of the implosion.

But it's also possible that the acrylic window warped. Regardless, the search for the divers spent a massive amount of international tax money. So, let's have the king of the world himself, James Cameron, explain why he thought the rescue attempt was a sham. They were on descent. They were at 3,500 feet. They lost comms and tracking.

The last one being the critical one, because the transponder that's used to track a sub during descent and on the bottom is a fully autonomous system. It's in its own pressure housing and it has its own battery power. So for them to lose comms and tracking at the same time, sub was gone. There was no question in my mind. For days I tried to run other scenarios that could account for it. I could come up with nothing.

That's wild. It's such a surreal world to think like, because he has dived on that so many times. It's like, who is the actual expert in this? It's the director of Avatar. Yeah. It's so strange. This was the first implosion of a manned deep ocean submersible ever,

but none of the experts were surprised it happened. Cameron, who has visited the Titanic 33 times, compared the incident to the Titanic itself, noting that both accidents were preventable and caused by someone ignoring safety warnings. Will billionaires ever learn? So let's do a little where are they now. Soon after the implosion, the type of controller used in the Titan sold out on Amazon.

Because people. Recently a 74 year old billionaire real estate tycoon Larry Conner announced that he's spending $20 million on his own project to visit the Titanic. Only this time, he's contracted Triton Submarines. But as a species, we might not be out of hot water just yet. OceanGate's co-founder, Guillermo Sunline, who left the company in 2013, recently announced an expedition to a sinkhole called the Portal of Hell in the Bahamas. Oh my god. No lessons learned here. None.

Now, it's not as deep as the Titanic. It's only about 600 feet down, but it's pitch dark and potentially full of creepy monsters. So... Do these people know about Aruba? Like, you can just go on vacation. -♪ Hahahaha. -♪ Hahahaha. Some people's lives are too good. They're like, uh, yeah, we gotta... We gotta go to the hellhole.

Hahahaha. So, here on The Big Flop, and especially for this episode, we try to be positive people and end on a high. So are there any silver linings that you can think of that came about from this horrific incident? Maybe it dissuaded other people from getting in these submersibles. Well, I had actually been considering starting my own submersible company. I'm not going to do that anymore. So, okay, great.

There's my silver lining for it. Yeah. That's along the lines anymore. So, yeah. Okay, great. That's along the lines I was thinking of, because you know when the Titanic went down, regulations improved. I worked on cruise ships as a singer for a long time. I was on my very first contract ever when the Costa Concordia sank and immediately safety regulations in the industry completely changed. So, you know, hopefully regulations improve because of, you know, this tragedy. And we can only hope that the Titan serves as a cautionary tale in a similar way, you know?

Fingers crossed. And if we could see Leonardo DiCaprio starring in the make of this movie, that would really bring it full circle for me, actually. That would really be something. James Cameron, Leo, if you're listening. So, now that you both know about the Titan submersible and Ocean Gate, would you consider this a baby flop,

a big flop, or a mega flop? Mega, there's no question. There's no question. Yeah, how big this news story was, like worldwide, that's, it's a mega flop. Mega, there's no question. There's no question. Yeah, how big this news story was, like, worldwide, that it's a mega. And sometimes you hear about these things and it's like, oh, nobody could have known, but everybody knew.

That's like, and in a way that almost makes you, like now I'm like thinking about it more, I'm like, in a way it's almost a baby flop, because it's like, no, we knew it was going to flop. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's not like everyone thought it was going to go well and then it flopped. It'd be like being like, I'm going to throw a paper plane from New York to Los Angeles. It's like, no, you're not. Well, thank you so much to our seaworthy guests, Jay Cornell and Noah Miller for joining us here

on The Big Flop. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review and we'll be back next week with another flop. He's the fallen face of crypto. It's Sam Bankman-Freed. Bye. Bye, Misha. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. If you like the big flop, you can listen early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and At Will Media, hosted by Misha Brown, produced by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner, written by Anna Rubinova and Luke Burns,

engineered by Anna Rubinova with support from Andrew Holzberger. Managing producer is Molly Getman. Executive producers are Kate Walsh and Will Molnati for At Will Media. Legal support by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers and Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Adam Azarath and Matt Beagle. Coordinating producer is Mariah Gossett. Music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Freesong Sync. Theme song is Sinking Ship by Cake. Executive producers are Lizzie Bassett, Dave Easton, and Marshall Louie for Wondery. We are on a sinking ship We are on a sinking ship