“Titan: Theoceagate Disaster” by Netflix does not discover the depths of the problems which led to the fateful imposition of the submersible which cost the life of five lives in the summer of 2023, putting the unique accent on the misdeeds of Stockton Rush.
On June 18, 2023, the Titan of Submersible Oceangate imploded and killed the five members on board, including the CEO and co-founder of Stockton Rush. A horrible story that drew the attention of the world, disturbing details immediately emerged as the submersible being piloted by a PlayStation controller. But the story of Titan also fits into a familiar story of our time when a narcissistic individual cut the corners to seek glory, and that ended up costing people’s lives.
For those who do not know why Titan failed, the Netflix documentary by Mark Monroe “Titan: The Oceangate Disaster” gives a solid overview of what led to the implosion of the submersible. However, Monroe also seems reluctant to explore why Oceangate was able to reach her deadly final journey and the factors that made it possible to rush beyond her wealth and her toxic personality. “Titan” wants to start and end with Rush’s actions when it looks like this conclusion is already strewn on the surface of history.
Monroe’s documentary largely covers the eight years preceding the implosion of Titan, the figures which were initially led to make the vision of Rush a reality, and which left later when it became clear how security was secondary to cost and convenience. The main problem revolves around the use of carbon fiber for the ship’s shell instead of the titanium or another metal generally used in submersibles. Carbon fiber is cheaper, both to make and to transport, but it was largely not tested as a material for exploration in the deep sea. Rather than going to a stronger material, Oceangate simply raised the shoulders, added acoustic sensors that would note when a carbon fiber had broken and qualified it as a safety measure. In the same way, Oceangate has circumvented the regulations concerning the qualifications of the crew and the staff by calling almost all the people involved as a “mission specialist”. It was a sign of a company that worked as an expression of the Rush ego, but also a broader cultural mentality that the rules are hindering innovation and progress.
When “Titan” looks at the different players involved and understands the richness of Oceangate images of their tests and workshops, you have a functionality that feels more immediate than the extremely written profiles covering the disaster. As precious as the articles of the New Yorker and the Cables, there is something particularly scary to look at Rush in a test dive while we hear a “pop” of the carbon fiber strands break. Without resorting to leisure, Monroe portrays a disturbing image of what the last moments of the sentenced Titan trip could have been as without playing it as exploitation. More overwhelming is the way in which Rush could personally experience such a distinct warning and retaliate in place against the engineer who included the instruments that noted these warnings. In a company that required maximum diligence, Rush has repeatedly shown its fury not to failure, but to be informed of failures.
Of course, it is incredibly easy to say all this now that Rush is dead, killed by his own negligence, his insensitivity and his ignorance. Living, he had the resources to silence his detractors, and here we are starting to arrive at a much more overwhelming indictment that goes far beyond a person. The chief of Oceangate marine operations, David Lochridge, became a denunciator, but because Rush had the resources to bury Lochridge in legal costs, the chief of maritime operations had no other choice but to withdraw his complaint, which in turn put the investigation into oceangate oceangate oceangate. A system of denunciation where the individual has no protection and can be beaten financially in the submission to the place where the whole investigation stops is an indictment which goes far beyond the oceangate, but “Titan” makes only a shocking rhythm which is positioned in the framework of the vindictive and monomaniacal nature of Rush.
Once you start to shoot the wires surrounding the rise of the oceangate, a more fascinating tension emerges than that which the documentary presents. Instead of fully blaming Rush, we can see how his marketing opinion and a cheese press gave him latitude to sell a dangerous product. Perhaps Monroe said that looking at the greatest systems would seem to let the hook rush, which is a fair decision. But with Rush as the center of anger of the documentary, we can see how the greatest systems allowed its abuse. Regulations have become minor obstacles that could be bypassed or outright ignored. The media have become a marketing partner, never asking difficult questions, but instead of being dazzled by the Rush sales field and the attraction of visiting the wreck of the Titanic. When a journalist said the next day, “we were misleading”, I was surprised. He did not come about this journalist that the CEO could try to sell his product, and that more in -depth investigation was necessary to verify his claims?
But these marketing and sale questions attract people to a death trap persist on the sidelines of the “Titan” while offering the cold comfort that Rush can no longer harm anyone else. Although this is true, “Titan” has no answer on what will happen to the next person who replaces Rush. Nothing in the documentary indicates that a similar and resolved person would find it difficult to repeat their transgressions. In this way, “Titan” becomes another insurance as empty as that made by the single villain of the film. There will always be another rush, and as far as I can understand of this documentary, there is nothing to prevent it from flowing at a similar depth.
“Titan: The Oceangate Disaster” arrives on Netflix on June 11.
