Moment wife of OceanGate CEO hears Titan sub imploding

A new BBC documentary reveals the moment that OceanGate's Titan submersible was lost in footage recorded on the sub's support ship.

Titan imploded about 90 minutes into a tourist trip to see the wreck of the Titanic in June 2023.

In the documentary, Wendy Rush, the wife of OceanGate's chief executive Stockton Rush, reacts to a mysterious bang as the support ship attempts to communicate with the vessel.

"What's that bang?" Rush said after a noise which sounded like a door slamming was relayed back to the support ship.

The footage was recently obtained by the US Coast Guard and sheds new light on what happened during the tragic dive.

Prior to the voyage, warnings had been raised by deep sea experts and some former OceanGate employees about Titan's design.

OceanGate's former director of marine operations accused the company's CEO of risking his life and others in a "quest to boost his ego", while raising concerns about the company's submersibles to a colleague years ago.

The former employee, David Lochridge, had sent an email to another ex-associate of OceanGate in 2018, expressing his fears about Stockton Rush and the project, according to The New Yorker magazine.

OceanGate sued Lochridge that year, and he filed a counterclaim alleging that he was wrongfully fired for raising questions about testing and safety.

According to The New Yorker, Lochridge wrote in an email: "I don’t want to be seen as a tattletale but I’m so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego.

"I would consider myself pretty ballsy when it comes to doing things that are dangerous, but that sub is an accident waiting to happen."

The passengers had paid OceanGate to see the wreck of the Titanic, some 3800m down at the bottom of the ocean.

On board were Oceangate's CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, the British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

The Titanic Sub Disaster documentary airs on BBC Two on Wednesday May 28.