Former OceanGate staffers say CEO Stockton Rush ‘wanted fame’ and describe him as a ‘borderline psychopath’ in new Netflix documentary trailer

An upcoming Netflix documentary is set to take a closer look at the Titan submersible’s ill-fated journey to the wreck of the Titanic two years ago.

“Titan: The OceanGate Disaster” arrives on Netflix on June 11 and will examine the events leading up to the doomed expedition that killed OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and four others after the vessel carrying them to view the wreck imploded in June 2023.

The trailer for the documentary shows interviews with several people close to the late exec and who worked for the expedition company.

“There was no way of knowing when Titan was going to fail,” Rob McCallum, a former OceanGate advisor, says in the trailer. “But it was a mathematical certainty that it would fail.”

The trailer also teases interviews with ex-OceanGate staff members like Tony Nissen, a former engineering director at the firm, Bonnie Carl, a human resources and finance director, and David Lochridge, an operations director who previously said he was fired after raising safety concerns about the sub.

In the trailer, Lochridge says he thought Rush “wanted fame” to “fuel his ego,” while Nissen adds that he thought Stockton was “a borderline psychopath.”

Elsewhere in the clip, Carl recalls her reaction after she said Rush announced she would be the company’s next sub pilot: “Are you nuts? I’m an accountant.”

As well as testimonies from key figures, “Titan: The OceanGate Disaster” will also feature “pivotal” audio recordings and footage from OceanGate’s early days, per the documentary’s synopsis.

Speaking in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum, director Mark Monroe said he had been “horrified and mesmerized” by the coverage and social commentary on the sub and that he hoped the documentary could provide answers about how the disaster happened.

“The more I dug into this terrible tragedy, the more intrigued I became about how this could have ever happened in the first place, and who exactly was the man who built and then went down with this ship,” he said. “We hope that this film can help provide answers to these very questions.”

Earlier this week, the US Coast Guard released footage showing the moment that Rush’s wife, Wendy Rush, heard the apparent sound of the Titan submersible imploding.

Wendy can be seen trying to contact the sub from a support vessel when a loud slamming sound can be heard through a monitor.

“What was that bang?” she said.

The submersible lost communication with the support vessel — the Polar Prince — around an hour and 45 minutes into its dive, sparking a dramatic four-day search and rescue effort.

Debris from the Titan was eventually found by a remotely operated vehicle around 500 meters (roughly 1,640 feet) from the bow of the Titanic, which lies around 12,500 feet below the surface.

Alongside Rush, British pilot and adventurer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and former French Navy diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet died in the incident.

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