PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The Titan submersible disaster could have been prevented, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a report Tuesday that held OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush responsible for ignoring safety warnings, design flaws and crucial oversight which, had he survived, may have resulted in criminal charges.

Rush and four passengers were killed instantly deep below the North Atlantic in June 2023 when Titan suffered a catastrophic implosion as it descended to the wreck of the Titanic. A multi-day search for survivors off Canada grabbed international headlines, and the tragedy led to lawsuits and calls for tighter regulation of the burgeoning private deep sea expedition industry.

The Coast Guard determined the safety procedures at OceanGate, a private company based in Washington state, were “critically flawed” and found “glaring disparities” between safety protocols and actual practices.

Preventing the next Titan disaster

Jason Neubauer with the Marine Board of Investigation said the findings will help avoid future tragedies.

“There is a need for stronger oversight and clear options for operators who are exploring new concepts outside of the existing regulatory framework,” he said in a statement.

OceanGate suspended operations in July 2023. A spokesperson for OceanGate, Christian Hammond, said the company has been wound down and was fully cooperating with the investigation, and offered condolences to the families of those who died and everyone affected.

‘Red flags’ at OceanGate

Investigators pointed to OceanGate’s culture of downplaying, ignoring and even falsifying key safety information to improve its reputation and evade scrutiny from regulators.

The company ignored “red flags” and had a “toxic workplace culture,” where firings of senior staff and the looming threat of being fired were used to dissuade employees and contractors from expressing safety concerns.

Rush, a former flight test engineer for fighter jets, founded the company in 2009 after years of experience in aerospace and aviation.

The Marine Board concluded that Rush had an “escalating disregard for established safety protocols,” which contributed to the deaths of four people. If Rush were alive, the board would have passed the case to the U.S. Department of Justice and he may have faced criminal charges, the board said.

Rush bragged he’d ‘buy a congressman’ if challenged

The company reclassified submersible passengers as “mission specialists” to bypass regulations on small passenger vessels and claim its subs were oceanic research vessels. Former mission specialists and OceanGate employees said their participation was “purely for a ride in the submersible, not for scientific research,” the report said.

Rush and OceanGate received numerous warnings about Titan’s fraudulent classifications. In 2017, Rush was told by a Coast Guard Reserve officer hired by OceanGate that his planned Titanic dive would be illegal.

Rush said “he would buy a congressman” if ever confronted by regulators, the officer testified.

Over the years, the company resorted to increasingly deceptive strategies, the report said. By 2021, an OceanGate attorney falsely informed a federal court in Virginia — which was presiding over The Titan’s authorization to conduct dives — that the vessel was registered in the Bahamas, even though it wasn’t.

To obtain his credentials, Rush submitted a fraudulent sea service letter signed by OceanGate’s chief operations officer to the Coast Guard’s National Maritime Center, the report said. In the letter, Rush claimed past service as a crew member on Titan and misrepresented the size of the vessel, when in fact it had never been registered or admeasured.

Titan’s inadequacies

Investigators found the submersible’s design, certification, maintenance and inspection process were all inadequate. The vessel’s carbon fiber hull design and construction introduced flaws that “weakened the overall structural integrity” of its hull, the report stated.

Mounting financial pressures in 2023 led to a decision by OceanGate to store the Titan submersible outdoors over the Canadian winter, where its hull was exposed to temperature fluctuations that compromised the integrity of the vessel, the report said.

The victims of the Titan disaster

The implosion also killed French underwater explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, known as “Mr. Titanic,” British adventurer Hamish Harding, and two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood.

Nargeolet’s family filed a $50 million lawsuit last year that said the crew experienced “terror and mental anguish” before the disaster. The lawsuit accused OceanGate of gross negligence.

The Titan’s final dive

Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic site since 2021. The Titan’s final dive came on the morning of June 18, 2023. The submersible lost contact with its support vessel about two hours later, and was reported overdue that afternoon. Ships, planes and equipment were rushed to the scene about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The Coast Guard-led team operated under the possibility there could be survivors for several days. Wreckage would subsequently be found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic.

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Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island, Leah Willingham in Boston, and Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed.