Stockton Rush, founder of the company that owns the submersible craft that went missing on its way to view the Titanic wreckage, has said previously that safety 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,” Rush said in a 2022 podcast with CBS reporter David Pogue. "At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question.”
That mindset is now coming into focus as rescuers race to find the Titan, which has Rush and four other passengers on board and is likely running out of oxygen — with estimates of about 16 hours left. Ocean scientists and at least one former employee of Rush’s company, OceanGate, have been sounding alarms about its safety procedures for at least five years.