Resurfaced Footage Shows OceanGate CEO Forget How To Use Playstation Console Controlling Sub

Credit: OceanGate

An old video showing the late Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush confessing that he didn't know how to use the controller on the Titan submarine has surfaced again.

Following the sub-disaster that killed Rush and the other four passengers last month, a video of the CEO attempting to steer the ship as it was sinking due to a misaligned thruster has gone viral.

The scene is from the BBC documentary The Travel Show from 2022 when Rush is trying to figure out an issue with the mothership on the surface after the pilot, Scott Griffith, noticed the submersible spinning oddly during the launch.

BBC

Scott can be seen in the video shrugging and informing passengers that "they checked it and it seemed good" as he explains that the ship's controls were not functioning, presuming that a thruster issue would have been the reason for the strange spinning.

"When I'm thrusting forwards, one of the thrusters is thrusting backward. Now the only thing I can do right now is a 360," he said in the clip.

The CEO advised "remapping the PS3 controller" while on the phone with a colleague. 

BBC

He suggested changing the settings on the submersible's controller.

Rush then acknowledged that he was having trouble using the controller and said: "Yeah, but I don't remember which is up and down."

Rush's colleague's plan was successful, and the Titan was able to travel all the way to the ocean floor while Griffith took its passengers to witness the Titanic's underwater wreck.

BBC

However, some people were made aware of the tense situation.

"We're not going to make it," I was thinking. The documentary team was told by Renata Rojas that she has always longed to witness the Titanic.

"We're literally 300 meters from Titanic and although we're in the debris field, we can't go anywhere but go in circles."

Rush was one of the five people killed when the Titan tragically sank on June 18. 

Other passengers on board the vessel included French sub-pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, and father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. All of these people were thought dead after the wreckage was found close to the crash after several days of investigation.

Following the implosion, OceanGate stopped all operations since the catastrophe made people worry about the security of submersible journeys.

The actual cause of the ship's implosion is presently being investigated, and officials aren't excluding the possibility of criminal charges.

Large pieces of the vessel, including structural titanium rings, the front viewport, significant pieces of the submersible's covering, and tubes and piping enclosed in a metal cage are being examined by experts.