Titan passenger says OceanGate CEO told them to SLEEP when they got stuck at bottom of Atlantic

A man who was once a passenger on the doomed Titan submersible has claimed that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush suggested the crew sleep on the vessel overnight while they were stuck at the bottom of the Atlantic. 

Jaden Pan’s 2021 expedition took a terrifying turn when the Titan’s battery die just over two hours into its descent to the Titanic wreck on the ocean floor.

Speaking to the BBC last year, the videographer recalled the moment Rush told the passengers that the battery had gone ‘kaput.’

Rush reportedly told passengers they needed to go back to the surface when they were within two football fields’ distance of the legendary ship wreckage.

‘At first, I thought he was joking because we were over two hours into our expedition and so close to the bottom,’ Pan told the BBC.

Rush reportedly told passengers they needed to go back to the surface when they were within two football fields’ distance of the legendary ship wreckage after the vessel’s battery failed

Eventually, Rush managed to use hydraulics to drop the weight and thee vessel floated back up safely with everyone on board. Pan’s crew pictured above

‘But then he explained that one of the batteries went kaput and we were having trouble using the electronic drops for the weights, so it would be hard for us to get back up to the surface.’

As Rush tried to solve the issue, he reportedly offered the passengers to go to sleep as the vessel sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Once the vessel’s weights dissolved after 24 hours, the submersible would be able to rise to the surface. 

Half the crew, including Stockton, said they would be okay sleeping at the ocean’s floor. However, the other clients were not willing to spend the night under the ocean.

Eventually, Rush managed to use hydraulics to drop the weight and the vessel floated back up safely with everyone on board.

The CEO was seen on the BBC report telling the crew they were going to be down for another ’16 to 24 hours.’

‘We will drift down. We’ll hit the bottom. We’ll have communications. We can talk to them,’ Stockton added.

Pan’s story has come to light after five passengers, including Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, were killed during a dive to the Titanic last month.

Rush – a self-professed ‘innovator’ who sought to push the boundaries on passenger diving – died in what proved to be the Titan’s final voyage, after its pressure chamber imploded near the 3800meter depths where the Titanic rests. 

Shahzada Dawood, 58, and his 19-year-old son Suleman were also on board. They were pictured smiling arm in arm before they boarded the submersible on the $250,000 per person trip in which they and three others perished. 

Pan’s story has come to light after five passengers, including Rush, were killed during a dive to the Titanic last month

Rush – a self-professed ‘innovator’ who sought to push the boundaries on passenger diving – was one of five died in what proved to be the Titan’s final voyage, after its pressure chamber imploded near the 3800meter depths where the Titanic rests.

He reportedly believed going to the depths of the Atlantic in the Titan was ‘safer than crossing the street’, despite having been warned by dozens of experts in 2018 that his company’s ‘experimental’ approaches could be ‘catastrophic’. 

The safety of the submersible and OceanGate’s dismissal of several warnings has drawn considerable criticism after the Titan went missing during a June 18 dive to the seafloor.

The CEO – who considered himself to be more of a scientist than a salesman despite much of his efforts being focused on marketing the sub trips – was begged in 2019 to suspend operations after a submersible expert heard cracking sounds during one of the Titan’s dives in the Bahamas.