Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, was aboard his company’s Titan submarine that disappeared on Sunday en route to the wreck of HMS Titanic around 370 miles east of the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
Rush founded OceanGate in 2009 and his firm, based in Everett, Washington, provides crewed submersibles for industry, research and exploration. In 2021, the firm started taking paying customers to the iconic wreck of the Titanic in 2021 at a price tag of up to $250,000 per person for an eight-day expedition.
Before plunging the depths of the ocean, Rush’s career was in the skies. At 19, he became the youngest jet transport-rated pilot in the world in 1981, according to his biography on the OceanGate website. He joined the McDonnell Douglas Corporation as a flight test engineer on the F-15 program in 1984.
Rescue crews have been frantically scouring a massive area of ocean for signs of the missing vessel, which has less than 12 hours of oxygen remaining Wednesday evening, according to United States Coast Guard Officials.
Search and rescue teams have reported hearing a “banging” noise in 30-minute intervals coming from the area where the subversive disappeared, leaving some experts optimistic that the crew was still alive.
