
Creepy Wikipedia Pages About The Ocean And More
If you're one of the millions who suffer from thalassophobia (i.e. the intense fear of deep bodies of water such as the ocean or sea), then I probably don't have to remind you that the ocean, lakes, and other bodies of water can be scary places. So, when I decided to go searching for creepy Wikipedia stories about the ocean and other watery places (yeah, IDK, it's something I do 🤷🏻♀️), I found some horrifyingly interesting results. Check it out:
The catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible.
On June 18, 2023, the Titan imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreck site in the North Atlantic. The underwater vehicle lost contact with its support ship 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive. A debris field was later found near the Titanic wreck, indicating there had been a catastrophic implosion. It was later concluded that the implosion was caused by structural failure, with many believing OceanGate, the parent company of the Titan, was guilty of "cutting corners." All five people on board were killed instantly.
Custom of the sea, a historically accepted practice of cannibalism, specifically cannibalizing the bodies of the deceased, as a means of survival during shipwrecks and sea disasters when food was scarce.
Vintage engraving showing the survivors of the Burning of the "Cospatrick". The Cospatrick was a wooden 3-masted full-rigged sailing ship that was the victim of one of the worst shipping disasters to a merchant ship during the 19th century. Initially 61 passengers and crew survived, but one of the lifeboats went missing during a storm on the night of 21 November. Those in the remaining boat were infamously reduced to cannibalism, before five survivors were rescued by the ship British Sceptre on 27 November 1874.
Historically, if survivors had no access to food, they sometimes would resort to eating corpses. If there were no corpses, then a lottery was conducted to select a victim. This practice was considered legally and morally acceptable among sailors. However, victims were often chosen because of perceived "expandability," meaning young boys, passengers, or enslaved people were often picked.
The disappearance of passenger flight Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 somewhere over the Indian Ocean in 2014, which resulted in the loss of all 239 people on board.
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to Beijing Capital International Airport with 239 people on board. The flight was lost on air traffic control radar but picked up by military radar, hundreds of miles off course from the planned flight path. The flight never arrived at its destination. Although various pieces of plane debris have been found in the years since, most of it is unconfirmed to have actually belonged to MH370.
The 1973 Mount Gambier cave diving accident in Australia, which killed four recreational scuba divers.
The four divers, two of whom were siblings, went exploring at a large sinkhole known as "The Shaft," the total length of which is still unknown. The divers apparently went beyond their planned limits and without the help of a guideline. As a result, they got lost and likely disoriented as their oxygen ran out. Two ended up in a dome area with no exit, one was seen swimming further down in the wrong direction, and the fourth was believed to have been lost beneath a cave ceiling. All four eventually ran out of air and subsequently drowned. It took a year for all of their bodies to be recovered.
The Disappearance of Amy Lynn Bradley while on a cruise in the Caribbean.
Bradley was on a cruise in the Caribbean with her family when she went missing on March 24, 1998. When Amy's father, Ron, got up early to check on his two kids, he saw that she was apparently asleep on a lounge chair on their cabin's balcony. However, less than an hour later, at 6:00 a.m. she was gone. After a brief search, her family reported her missing to the crew. However, the response was that it was "too early" to make a ship-wide announcement. The crew and staff did eventually search for Amy and then a four-day search by the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard was conducted, but she was never found. There have allegedly been a number of sightings over the years since.
The wild 1961 story of Terry Jo Duperrault, aka the "Sea Orphan," who was rescued out at sea after floating without food, water, or shelter for three and a half days.
Terry Jo Duperrault was just 11 years old when she was found floating in the ocean on a small raft. It turned out that Terry had been on a boat just a few days before with her family and a man named Julian Harvey...who had, himself, been recently rescued out at sea.
The twist is that Harvey had actually tried to kill Terry and her family. He had been hired by Terry's family to captain a yacht for a once-in-a-lifetime around-the-world trip. But, instead, he murdered everyone on board and left Terry on the sinking yacht to drown before he escaped. When Terry was found alive, Harvey (who did not expect her to survive his ploy), was notified. Just hours later, Harvey died by suicide.
The death of three crew members onboard the ship, The Ocean Challenger, which was featured in Season 3 of the show Deadliest Catch.
The ship was crewed with four men who abandoned ship after it capsized and took on water. Only one survivor made it out. Rescue missions also found two dead crewmen floating in the water and one empty survival suit.
This entire article is dedicated to the phrase "Man overboard!" which also includes the fact that hundreds of people have gone overboard from cruise ships since 2000.
According to the section about "overboard statistics," since 2000, 284 people have gone overboard or fallen off of cruise ships, while 41 people have fallen off of ferries. And, apparently, "in any given month," roughly two people go overboard, while only 17 to 25 percent are rescued.
The Lake Bodom murders, one of the most infamous unsolved homicide cases in Finnish criminal history.
In June 1960, four teens decided to camp on the shore of Lake Bodom. Three of the teens were stabbed and bludgeoned to death. The only survivor, Nils Gustafsson, sustained a concussion and some facial fractures. He claimed to have only gotten a glimpse of the attacker. Gustafsson was later tried for their murders but acquitted.
The Disappearance of Rebecca Coriam who was a crewmember on the cruise ship Disney Wonder.
Coriam missed her shift one morning aboard the Disney cruise in 2011, and couldn't be found in her room or anywhere else on the ship. However, investigators did find CCTV footage of her (at 5:45 a.m.) having a phone conversation and appearing emotionally distraught. This was the last record of her presence aboard the ship and her body has not been found.
The case of Harold Holt, a former Australian prime minister who disappeared while swimming at Chevion beach in Australia.
Holt was still in office when he went missing in 1967, and the case spawned several conspiracy theories — including wild ones like that he'd been taken by a Chinese submarine. Holt had left behind his clothes and spearfishing equipment on the beach, but his body was never found. Holt was later presumed dead.
The disappearance of Amelia Earhart over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
Earhart was an aviation pioneer who, at just 39 years old, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while attempting to become the first woman to fly around the globe. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were last seen taking off from New Guinea on July 2, 1937. And her last contact was a message to a Coast Guard boat saying, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.' And, finally, an hour later, 'We are running north and south.' A rescue attempt and search were made, scouring 250,000 square miles of ocean, but it was called off on July 19. Although there has been a lot of speculation over the years, no one actually knows what happened to Earhart and Noonan.
Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee, an unidentified young woman found murdered in Florida.
This Jane Doe was discovered partially submerged in Lake Panasoffkee in Florida. The victim was fully clothed, with a ring on her ring finger (suggesting she may have been married), and with a man's size 36 belt fastened around her neck.
The Lava Lake murders, one of the oldest unsolved murder cases in Oregon's history.
This was a triple murder that occurred at Little Lava Lake in Central Oregon's Deschutes National Forest almost 100 years ago, way back in 1924. Three friends had planned to spend the winter in a log cabin, working as fur trappers. After going missing, blood, human hair, and teeth were found leading to the lake where their bodies were eventually discovered as the frozen ice thawed.
The story of Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli, who floated out over the ocean and disappeared from contact after being tied to 1,000 balloons.
Although the priest — who was making an attempt at "cluster ballooning" (a form of ballooning where people are literally harnessed to a cluster of helium-inflated rubber balloons) — had been equipped with all kinds of gear like a radio and a GPS tracking device, he was lost for months, and his corpse was eventually found in the ocean.
Roopkund or "Skeleton Lake" where you can see hundreds of human skeleton remains.
This shallow lake in India is famous for having hundreds of human skeletons at the edge, which you can see when the snow melts. According to researchers, the bones are the remains of people killed in a sudden and violent hailstorm in the 9th century.
The disappearance of Andrew McAuley whose distress calls were later found on a recovered memory stick.
McAuley was an Australian kayaker who attempted to cross the Tasman Sea in 2007. He slept in the kayak using a sea anchor and a capsule that enclosed him into the kayak's hatch. When his kayak was recovered, the capsule was missing. In the aftermath, footage was found on a memory stick in his camera and shows him making distress calls saying he was sinking and needed a rescue.
The Murder of Helle Crafts, a Danish woman who was murdered by her husband and whose chopped-up remains were found in a lake.
After Helle Crafts's disappearance in 1986, a snowplow driver reported seeing her husband using a woodchipper near the lake on the night Helle was last seen. In and near the lake, police found pieces of metal and human tissue including a tooth, a fingernail, bone chips, human hair, fingernails, and blood that all matched Helle. Police concluded her remains had gone through a woodchipper. Her case partially inspired the film Fargo.
The Salish Sea human foot discoveries.
Since August of 2007, there have been at least 20 DETACHED human feet discovered off the coasts of British Columbia in Canada and Washington state in the US. There are a ton of theories as to why JUST feet have been discovered — ranging from boating accidents, plane crashes, suicide, foul play, and even the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The Lady in the Lake trial about a woman whose body was discovered by amateur divers at the bottom of a lake.
Carol Park's body was discovered at the bottom of Coniston Water in North West England. She had been wrapped in a pinafore dress, plastic bags, and weighed down with lead piping. In a post-mortem, it was discovered that her face had been smashed and that the murder weapon was an ice axe. Her husband, Gordon Park, was eventually found guilty, but there was a ton of controversy surrounding the case.
The existence of bog bodies — i.e. human cadavers that have been naturally mummified in a peat bog.
The preservation of bodies in bogs is a natural phenomenon, i.e. not a result of humans purposefully doing it. The bogs' acids, with pH levels similar to vinegar, conserve human bodies in the same way as fruit is preserved by pickling.
The Lake Nyos disaster that killed almost 2,000 people.
This 1986 eruption in northwestern Cameroon triggered the sudden release of about 100,000–300,000 tons of carbon dioxide. It's believed that most of the victims had been poisoned by a mixture of gases that included hydrogen and sulfur. Among eye and nose pain, victims also suffered asphyxiation similar to being strangled.
The MV Joyita, a ship whose crew and passengers mysteriously disappeared.
This merchant vessel set sail in the South Pacific in 1955 with a crew of 25, but was found adrift five weeks later with no one on board and in bad condition. There are many theories about what happened, especially since the ship had been called "unsinkable."
The Diving bell spider — a species of spider that lives almost entirely underwater.
Found in clean fresh water (like lakes, ponds, and more), this is the only known spider that spends almost all its life underwater. It only comes above the surface to briefly replenish its oxygen supply. Their bite is very painful and can cause vomiting and feverishness.
The sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis that left crew members floating alone in the ocean...with sharks.
Apparently, the sinking of this ship resulted in the most shark attacks on humans in history. It was so bad that some survivors killed themselves or even other crew members in various states of delirium and hallucinations.
The Abyssal zone, the part of the ocean that remains in perpetual darkness.
This layer of the ocean comes from the Greek word meaning "bottomless," and makes up over 83% of the ocean and covers 60% of the Earth. Since there's no light, there are no plants to produce oxygen which results in a death trap for organisms that can't quickly return to oxygen-enriched water above.
Finally, this very long List of Bermuda Triangle incidents.
There are at least 923 fatalities attributed to the Bermuda Triangle including many missing planes, incidents at sea (allegedly Christopher Columbus and his crew even saw strange lights there), and one incident on land where two lighthouse keepers went missing, never to be found.
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Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Biggest Revelations From Netflix's 'Titan: The OceanGate Disaster'
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That might sound like a startling admission, but it's only one of many revelations being shared by former OceanGate employees in this documentary among others amid the ongoing investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard and other governing bodies. Here's an overview of some of the most important things viewers learned in the Netflix documentary about the Titan, OceanGate, and its founder, the late Stockton Rush. For a ship to be classed means it has been reviewed and certified by an independent maritime classification society to meet established structural and safety standards. This process ensures the vessel's design, construction, and maintenance adhere to international guidelines for seaworthiness. After the first hull on Titan was completed, Rob McCallum, founding partner and operator of EYOS Expeditions, says in the documentary that Rush told the crew in 2018 while at lunch near the company's headquarters that he saw no need for classification or third-party oversight. (McCallum was consulting given his experience on deep sea tours.) McCallum says he stood up and resigned on the spot. 'I said, 'I'm sorry I can't be a part of this conversation, nor can I be associated with OceanGate or this vehicle in any way,' and I left,' McCallum says. 'He had every contact in the submersible industry telling him not to do this.' In 2016, an OceanGate submersible piloted by Rush became stuck beneath the wreck of the Andrea Doria off the coast of Massachusetts. Despite warnings from OceanGate's then-director of marine operations, David Lochridge, about the dangers of approaching the deteriorating site, Rush moved too close and wedged the Cyclops 1, another one of the company's submersibles, into the bow. Accounts vary on what happened next. Some reports claim Rush panicked and threw the controller at Lochridge to take over. The documentary includes the most footage ever shown of the incident: Rush, indeed, looks flustered. Lochridge very clearly and calmly is able to regain control of the sub and steer it back to the surface. That said, it still cannot be confirmed if the controller was thrown or not, as camera angles inside the sub are limited due to its size. After the 'classed' incident, Rush assigned Lochridge to write a safety report on the Titan. Lochridge raised concerns about the carbon fiber hull and the lack of non-destructive testing. He was then summoned to a meeting the following day with Stockton, finance and administration director Bonnie Carl, quality assurance director Scott Griffith, and Nissen. Curiously, the meeting was recorded, and the audio playback was shared in the documentary. Lochridge was fired, and bizarrely, Rush tried to replace him with Carl, positioning her as the company's first female pilot, even though Carl herself points out she was an accountant. She says in the documentary she knew 'at that moment, she couldn't work at the company anymore' and decided to leave. Lochridge filed a whistleblower complaint with OSHA, alleging retaliation under the Seaman's Protection Act. OceanGate responded with a lawsuit, accusing him of breaching a non-disclosure agreement and misusing proprietary information. Lochridge countersued, claiming wrongful termination for raising safety concerns. He later said the legal battle became too draining for him and his wife to continue. At a U.S. Coast Guard hearing, he removed his glasses to wipe his eyes while describing the ordeal. At the end of the 2022 diving season, OceanGate left the Titan on an exposed dock in St. John's, Newfoundland for the winter—without shelter, garage, or even a tarp beyond a small blue one for the porthole. Nissen said he warned Rush the sub could not withstand sub-zero temperatures or the carbon fiber would begin to fracture. In the documentary interviews as well as testimony in front of the U.S. Coast Guard investigative panel, former employees said the company didn't have the budget to ship the sub back to Washington. No explanation was offered for why even a rental garage or temporary cover couldn't be provided. The Netflix documentary highlights that several missions were attempted beforehand in June 2023, including one featuring YouTuber Scuba Jake. On that second-to-last dive, the sub briefly submerged before losing communications and aborting the mission after just a few feet under water. Jake has since shared his experience both in the documentary and to his social media accounts, but he noted on his Instagram page that he took several months away for his mental health after the implosion. You Might Also Like 12 Weekend Getaway Spas For Every Type of Occasion 13 Beauty Tools to Up Your At-Home Facial Game


Cosmopolitan
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Titan: The OceanGate disaster – the full list of victims in the submersible implosion
A new Netflix documentary will explore the OceanGate submersible disaster of 2023, which left five people dead. The Titan submersible was heading down to the wreckage of the Titanic on 18 June. It was an exclusive trip reserved for only the very richest of society, with each seat on the submersible costing $250,000. However, as the Titan approached the wreckage, it stopped communicating and seemingly vanished into thin air. A four-day search and rescue mission took place in the Atlantic Ocean, before debris from the Titan was found nearly 4000m under the sea. It was thought that the Titan imploded, with the submersible's carbon fibres being unable to withstand the extreme pressure of the deep sea. Titan: The OceanGate Disaster will explore how businessman Stockton Rush and his deep-rooted desire to make extreme tourism a reality cost him, and four others, their lives. Here is the full list on who was on the Titan submersible at the time of the disaster. The 61-year-old businessman who co-founded and was CEO of OceanGate, a deep-sea exploration company. Rush had faced criticism from others in the field, and his own employees about the safety of the Titan submersible. Most submersibles are made of titanium or steel – however, the hull of the Titan was made of filament-wound carbon fibre, This made the vessel lighter, and less costly, but carbon fibre was more unpredictable. The Titan was also not 'classed' by an external body or third party. Despite warnings, Rush was confident in his contraption, which made 13 successful trips to the Titanic wreckage before the ill-fated excursion in 2023. A former employee, who was not named, told the BBC: 'Rush was very level-headed, he knew what needed to be done," he said. "He went on every sub dive, he was the pilot for every single one, and that's because he trusted the safety of the sub.' The 77-year-old French sea explorer and Titanic expert had a deep love and interest in the 1912 Titanic shipwreck, to the extent he was nicknamed 'Mr. Titanic' by loved ones. Before his death, he was the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, the company that owns the salvage rights to the storied shipwreck, and the author of the book In the Depths of the Titanic. He had previously made 35 dives towards the wreckage, and was once a decorated commander in chief in the French navy. Nargeolet was reportedly aware that the Titan was a somewhat ramshackled operation. Friends told Vanity Fair that they 'all tried to stop him' from taking part in excursions on the vessel. Somewhat nobly, he reportedly told loved ones: 'Maybe it's better if I'm out there, I can help them from doing something stupid or people getting hurt.' The 58-year-old British adventurer and businessman had a life filled with opportunity and extremes; he previously earned a pilot's license while he was studying for a degree in Cambridge, and launched the first regular business jet service to the Antarctic with his company Action Aviation. Due to his line of work, Harding regularly visited the South Pole. He accompanied Buzz Aldrin in 2016 when the former astronaut became the oldest person to reach the South Pole, age 86. A lifelong aviation buff, in 2019 Harding was one of a team of aviators that took the Guinness World Record for a circumnavigation of the Earth via the North and South Poles in a Gulfstream G650ER in 46 hours and 40 minutes. Two years later, Harding turned his attention to the deep blue seas; working alongside retired naval officer Victor Vescovo as he dived to the deepest point of the Mariana Trench – a staggering 36,000ft deep. This excursion landed him a second Guinness World Record for greatest distance covered at full ocean depth and greatest time spent at full ocean depth. Harding is survived by his wife, Linda, his two sons and two stepchildren. The family lived in Dubai. The 48-year-old British Pakistani businessman worked as a vice-chairman of the Engro Corporation and as a director of the Dawood Hercules Corporation, where he dealt with mergers and acquisitions. He gave significant amounts to charity; he was a trustee of his family's Dawood Foundation, which focused on education. Dawood also coordinated efforts to fight Covid-19 in Pakistan, as well as providing mental health support. He had a lifelong interest in the Titanic and had bought the trip on the Titan for him and his wife, Christine. The trip was then delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic – Christine then opted to give her ticket to her son, Suleman. Initially, the 19-year-old university student was not due to go on the trip. When his father, Shahzada, bought the tickets, he intended for just him and his wife to go, as Dawood was too young (the minimum age requirement for the submersible was 18.) However, with the trip being delayed due to the pandemic, and her son really wanting to go, Christine gave up her seat. Dawood was reportedly 'really excited' to be heading down to the wreckage. Per the BBC, Christine revealed her son had taken a Rubik's Cube with him because he wanted to break a world record. Suleman reportedly carried the toy everywhere and wanted to solve the puzzle below the remains of the Titanic to set a world record. Speaking of the loss, Christine said: 'We all thought 'they are just going to come up' so that shock was delayed by about 10 hours or so. There was a time … when they were supposed to be up on the surface again and when that time passed, the real shock, not shock but the worry and the not so good feelings started.' Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims following this tragic event. Kimberley Bond is a Multiplatform Writer for Harper's Bazaar, focusing on the arts, culture, careers and lifestyle. She previously worked as a Features Writer for Cosmopolitan UK, and has bylines at The Telegraph, The Independent and British Vogue among countless others.
Yahoo
a day ago
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The Truth About the 'Titan' Sub Disaster: 'Baffling' Decisions, Their Final Moments and a 'Smoking Gun' (Exclusive)
Two years after the Titan tragedy killed five people, a clearer picture is emerging about what led to catastrophe and why no one averted it PEOPLE interviewed investigators as well as people who were close to the company behind the sub, some of whom are also featured in a new Netflix documentary 'It comes down to Stockton Rush. The decisions he made led to this. It was a cult of personality. If you went against him, you were likely to be out'Bonnie Carl remembers the text she received from a friend in June 2023: 'Have you seen? OceanGate's in the news.' Her heart sank. She suspected what had happened — and who had suffered for it: 'But I thought, 'Jesus Christ, I don't want to be right.' ' On June 18 the submersible Titan, built by Carl's former employer, the headline-grabbing exploration company OceanGate, went missing off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, as it headed 12,500 ft. beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean to the wreck of the Titanic. The world was gripped by the search for the strange vessel and its five wealthy passengers and crew, counting down the hours before oxygen would run out some two miles deep in ink-black water. Then, four days after it disappeared, shredded pieces of the 22-ft. sub were found on the ocean floor near the century-old resting place of the doomed liner it had sought. Titan imploded under the crushing weight of the sea, killing all four passengers along with OceanGate cofounder Stockton Rush, 61, who was piloting the vehicle. 'When they found the wreckage, it gutted me. It still does,' says Carl, breaking down in tears. 'I'm angry. This shouldn't have happened.' The fact that it did, however, seems to surprise no one who was close to OceanGate or to its ambitious — some say domineering — leader. Now, two years after the tragedy, as the U.S. Coast Guard is preparing to release its final report this month after extensive investigation, a clearer picture is emerging of what led to Titan's terrifying final moments — and why no one averted catastrophe. The USCG inquiry, along with a new Netflix documentary, Titan: The OceanGate Disaster, and PEOPLE's interviews with former employees and confidants of Rush, describes a fatally flawed submersible design made worse by carelessness, a charismatic leader whose dreams blinded him to his faults and a company culture of fear that kept the dangers hidden from the public. 'It comes down to Stockton Rush. The decisions he made led to this,' says Mark Monroe, director of the Netflix doc. 'It was a cult of personality. If you went against him, you were likely to be out.' Rush believed 'the rules didn't apply [to him] ... and that there's value in breaking them,' says Monroe. But 'there are also rules of physics and engineering — and those apply to all of us.' Titan When Bonnie Carl was hired as OceanGate's bookkeeper in 2017, 'it was my dream job,' she recalls. A Seattle native, Carl was a CPA who had fallen in love with sea life and scuba diving four years earlier, and OceanGate offered her the chance to help with dives at its Everett, Wash., headquarters, and to learn to pilot a sub from the company's director of marine operations, David Lochridge. Lochridge, a former diver in the U.K. Royal Navy who had become an expert pilot specializing in sub rescues, fixated on the water as a boy visiting his grandparents on the Isle of Cumbrae off the coast of Scotland. Like Carl and many other OceanGate employees and investors, Lochridge was intrigued by Rush and his mission to make sea exploration more accessible with less expensive vessels. 'Stockton was a visionary who was trying to democratize the abyss,' says Fred Hagen, a developer who made two trips to the Titanic on Titan. 'That was a noble cause.' Born into wealth and an ancestral line that stretched to the nation's founding, Rush — with piercing blue eyes, thick silver hair and a square jaw — carried an air of the patrician set. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in aerospace engineering, built and piloted his own plane and submersible, became a venture capitalist — and married the great-great-granddaughter of a couple who died on the Titanic. Rush started OceanGate in 2009 and later began working on a sub design made of carbon fiber, which is lighter and cheaper than the typical titanium or steel. Industry experts were skeptical the material could withstand extreme pressure. But Rush persisted, even after small-scale prototypes imploded. Some in the close-knit diving community believe he was certain that he'd make it work eventually—and make history too. 'Stockton took risks and lived outside the box,' Hagen says. 'And he paid for it with his life.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Immediately after Lochridge joined OceanGate in 2016, when Titan was still in development, he could see things weren't adding up: 'The emperor,' he says, 'had no clothes.' In his first meeting with Rush, the CEO declared he didn't want underwater communication equipment. 'I genuinely thought he was joking, but he was deadly serious,' Lochridge says. 'It blew me away.' Though Rush relented, Lochridge says his safety questions were 'always met with resistance.' Lochridge's unease grew as construction on Titan began. The vessel's end caps, made of titanium, were affixed to the hull with glue. 'Four guys ... were applying it with spatulas,' he says. 'There was nobody verifying there were no voids. It was like somebody putting icing on a birthday cake.' Worse, Rush refused to get the vessel 'classified,' or safety-inspected by an independent agency. 'It would have cost a lot of money,' Lochridge says. Carl saw the company was far from solvent: When an $800,000 check came in from a woman who signed up for a Titanic trip, she used it to pay outstanding bills. Lochridge's conflict with Rush erupted in January 2018, after he shared his concerns in an internal report. Rush — who Carl says idolized billionaire entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, referring to them as 'big swinging d----'—was furious at the perceived lack of loyalty. He told Lochridge, 'I'm sure the industry thinks I'm a f------ idiot. That's fine. ... But I'm not going to force people to join my religion.' He fired Lochridge and told Carl she'd be head pilot. 'Are you nuts?' she thought. 'I'm an accountant.' She left as well. Rush forged ahead with Titan, despite worrying signs from an onboard warning system that detected the sounds of carbon fibers popping, likely weakening the structure of the hull. 'If I'd heard noises like that in a sub, I would never go on it again,' says Lochridge. Rush, on the other hand, was promoting his project with infomercials and hired as a guide the renowned Titanic expert P.H. Nargeolet, whose 35-plus years of experience lent gravitas to the venture. By 2021 OceanGate started taking its sub to the Titanic and charging six-figure tickets per person to join as a 'mission specialist' — a safety work-around 'to have passengers appear to be crew,' says the Coast Guard's Jason Neubauer, who was preparing to retire when he decided to lead the Titan probe. The company also skirted regulation by not 'flagging,' or registering, Titan with a country. The sub continued with dives in 2022, and the carbon fiber pops grew more frequent, culminating in a crack that year loud enough to be heard by the surface crew, according to Neubauer. 'That data was completely ignored,' he says, likening the decision to a 'smoking gun.' Instead of investigating, OceanGate left Titan in a parking lot for most of the winter, where it was covered by snow. 'It was baffling,' Neubauer says. 'Especially since carbon fiber is susceptible to the elements.' After more than six months outside, Titan was back in use in 2023. On the morning of June 18, Rush was joined for another expedition by Nargeolet, 77, businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, and explorer Hamish Harding, 58. Just over 90 minutes into their descent, as Titan drew close to the Titanic and said it was shedding weight, they lost contact. Seconds later Rush's wife, Wendy, who was on the support ship, heard a boom. Investigators now believe it was the implosion — a calamitous crunch. Weeks after that, remote-operated vehicles recovered remnants from inside the sub, much of which had been compressed into what one investigator termed 'sludge.' Among the identifiable artifacts: a scrap of Rush's diving jumpsuit and 'Titanic Expedition' stickers. Little else remained of the man who promised to open up the oceans' dark depths to the world — or the passengers killed in his attempt. 'I still question it every day: How could he not see this was dangerous?' Carl says. 'In my opinion, he clearly wanted fame. Stockton had his mind set. He was going to do this no matter what.' Read the original article on People