Stockton Rush was the CEO of OceanGate the company that made the Titan submersible that disappeared on June 18 while attempting to view Titanic wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean. After an intensive search and rescue mission, the company released a statement saying that it believed that the vessel and crew members were lost. The Coast Guard also offered condolences to the families after saying that they believe that the passengers were in a “catastrophic implosion” off the bow of the Titanic. “We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet have sadly been lost,” OceanGate said. “This is a very sad time for the entire explorer community, and for each of the family members of those lost at sea. We respectfully ask that the privacy of these families be respected during this most painful time.”
It turns out that Stockton had a connection to the Titanic. Stockton’s wife, Wendy Rush, descends from a couple who died when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912, according to The New York Times. Wendy’s relatives are Isidor Straus and Ida Straus. Wendy’s great-grandfather, Richard Weil, was married to Minnie Straus, one of Ida and Isidor’s daughters.
In the 1997 movie, Titanic, a fictionalized couple was portrayed holding onto each other in bed as the ship sank. This couple was reportedly loosely based on Isidor and Ida. Survivors recalled seeing the couple on the ship’s deck before it sank, according to NYT.
One of Isidor and Ida’s great-grandsons opened up about the couple’s Titanic experience in a 2017 interview. He said that Ida was on a lifeboat, escaping the ship, but changed her mind when she noticed that Isidor was not following her. Since Isidor was elderly and wealthy, he was allowed to get on the lifeboat, but he reportedly refused. “My great-grandfather said, ‘No, Until I see that every woman and child on board this ship is in a lifeboat, I will not enter a lifeboat myself,'” Isidor’s great-grandson claimed.
Stockton is the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, which owns the submarine. Along with Stockton, four other passengers were aboard the submersible that went missing on amidst its quest to view the remains of the Titanic underwater. The submarine’s oxygen was expected to have run out on the morning of June 22.
On the afternoon of June 22, the Coast Guard confirmed that a debris field had been discovered in the search area. One day prior, the Department of Homeland Security said that crews in the rescue mission heard banging sounds at 30 minute intervals during the search. The sub was about 13,000 feet underwater when it disappeared.