By Former OceanGate employee Matthew McCoy testified Friday that at a lunch meeting in September 2017, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush told him that if he ran into any issues with the U.S. Coast Guard ahead of the Titan expedition, Rush would “buy a congressman” and make the problems “go away.”
McCoy, a former Coast Guard member who was serving in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve at the time, brought up safety and regulatory concerns about the expedition at the meeting which Rush said they would get past by going through the Bahamas and launching out of Canada.
“The conversation basically ended when he, after explaining that the Coast Guard had tried to shut him down, down in California, and that he wouldn’t operate there anymore, but that if the Coast Guard became a problem, that he would buy himself a congressman and make it go away,” McCoy said during the final day of the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation’s hearing into the cause of the Titan’s implosion.
In a race against the clock on the high seas, an expanding international armada of ships and airplanes are searching for the Titan submersible vessel, pictured here, that vanished in the North Atlantic while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic. (OceanGate Expeditions via AP)
“Mr. McCoy, is that a direct quote?” asked Jason Neubauer, chair of the Coast Guard’s Marine Board investigation.
“He said, ‘I would buy a congressman’ and make, basically, the problems would go away at that point in time,” McCoy said. “That will stand in my mind for the rest of time. I’ve never had anybody say that to me directly, and I was aghast and basically, after that, I resigned from the company.”
Jason Neubauer, seated in middle, board chairman, questions Matthew McCoy, a former OceanGate employee, during the final day of the Coast Guard investigatory hearing on the causes of the implosion of an experimental submersible headed for the wreck of the Titanic, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C.
McCoy said he didn’t believe that the OceanGate had any professional engineers on their team, nor a safety officer. There was no formal system in place for investigating employee complaints or concerns, according to McCoy’s testimony.
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, was killed on the Titan along with businessman Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.
