Pilot Of Missing Submersible Is From Prominent CA Family

SAN FRANCISCO — The pilot of the submersible that disappeared while visiting the deep-sea wreckage of the Titanic, sparking a race against time to rescue those on board, is a descendant of one of the Bay Area’s wealthiest and most prominent families, according to reports.

Richard Stockton Rush III, 61, better known as Stockton Rush, is the CEO and founder of submersible company OceanGate Inc. as well as a descendant of both the Rush and Davies families, SFGATE reported. Among his ancestors are Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton, both of whom signed the Declaration of Independence, according to The New York Times.

He is related to millionaire Ralph K. Davies, who started as a 15-year-old office boy at Standard Oil of California in the 1910s before becoming the company’s youngest-ever director and eventually launching his own oil business, SFGATE and the Times reported.

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Davies’ wife, Louise M. Davies, gave millions to Bay Area institutions, including funding the San Francisco Symphony concert hall that bears her name, according to the Times.

According to an obituary of Louise M. Davies published in SF Gate in 1998, she donated to other cultural institutions and universities in the area, including the Conservatory of Music, Stanford University and the University of San Francisco.

The obituary described Louise M. Davies and her husband as "synonymous with San Francisco arts and culture."

Stockton Rush's father, also named Stockton Rush, was from Philadelphia and also attended Princeton University.

Stockton Rush has spent his life as an adventurer of the sea and sky. He became the youngest jet transport rated pilot in the world at 19 in 1981, decades before he founded Washington-based OceanGate in 2009, according to the company.

Rush has an aerospace engineering degree from Princeton University and a master’s of business administration from the University of California, Berkeley. He built a Glasair III aircraft and heavily modified a Kittredge K-350 submersible.

OceanGate, however, has attracted scrutiny and in 2018 drew “unanimous concern” from dozens of industry leaders, according to the Times.

In a letter to Rush, the Marine Technology Society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. Rush refused to do so.

David Lochridge, OceanGate's former director of marine operations, expressed concern that the craft’s passenger viewport was only certified for depths of up to 1,300 meters, while the Titanic sits at 4,000 meters.

OceanGate's choices would "subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible," said a counterclaim from Lochridge against the company.

Lochridge also had worries about OceanGate’s use of acoustic monitoring to detect flaws in the vessel.

“At some point, safety just is pure waste,” Rush told a CBS News podcast last year, according to SFGATE. “I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything.”

The Titan submersible was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland in Canada. The craft submerged Sunday morning, and its support vessel lost contact with it about an hour and 45 minutes later.

The submersible had a 96-hour oxygen supply starting at roughly 6 a.m. Sunday.

Underwater noises detected by a surveillance aircraft provided a measure of hope Wednesday as search vessels worked against long odds.

The area of the North Atlantic where the submersible went missing Sunday is prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission.

Jeff Karson, a professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is just above freezing, and the vessel is too deep for human divers to get to it. The best chance to reach the submersible could be to use a remotely operated robot on a fiber optic cable.

"I am sure it is horrible down there," he said. "It is like being in a snow cave and hypothermia is a real danger."

The expedition was OceanGate's third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the Titanic, which struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew. Since the wreckage's discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria.

Reuters reported the 2023 expedition cost $250,000 per person.

In addition to Rush, lost aboard the vessel are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.