As OceanGate’s Titan submersible was about to be christened five years ago, chief executive Stockton Rush said the vessel’s ability to eventually explore the wreckage of the Titanic was a breakthrough moment in ocean exploration.

“This will be one of the great moments of submersibles in that this technology is what we need to explore the ocean depth,” Rush said at the April 2018 christening event in Everett, Wash.

Footage of the christening has drawn attention in recent days, after the Titan disappeared Sunday while on an expedition headed for the Titanic wreckage. Rush is one of five people on board.

In the 2018 video, Rush said his company’s vessel would be able to explore 98 percent of the planet’s oceans. He credited private shareholders who raised money, saying they were the driving force of his ocean exploration instead of government agencies.

“The days of government funding are gone,” he said. “It really needs to be a private enterprise, just as exploration was at the turn of the last century where people with means make the exploration possible.”

On Thursday, the Coast Guard announced that a debris field was discovered within the search area by a remotely operated vehicle near the Titanic.

“Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information,” the Coast Guard tweeted.

Rear Adm. John Mauger, who is leading the search for the missing submersible by the Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force, told NBC’s “Today” show that the search will continue in full force Thursday because “people’s will to live really needs to be accounted for.”

Since the submersible went missing, OceanGate has faced questions regarding the safety of the company’s dives. A 2018 lawsuit by a former employee claimed that the company did not do enough to address “quality control and safety issues relating to the Titan.” The lawsuit was eventually settled.

Experts in maritime regulation have also said that OceanGate was operating in a legal gray area by using an American-made submersible, which had not received industry-standard certification, to dive in international waters after launching from a Canadian vessel.

Rush’s own words have also been scrutinized this week. He said last year that his greatest fear was being in a submersible and facing “things that will stop me from being able to get to the surface.” In the same interview with CBS News, Rush, the co-founder of the private research and tourism company that has conducted more than a dozen underwater expeditions since 2010, said that while the appropriate safety measures were being taken by OceanGate, “there’s a limit” to his safety concerns.

“I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed,” he said.

OceanGate’s push for manned submersibles began around 2013, when the company announced the launch of Project Cyclops, a collaboration with the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab. In 2017, Rush, who later told CBS that he “wanted to be sort of the Captain Kirk” of ocean exploration, announced that OceanGate would offer week-long expeditions on his company’s submersible as it traveled down to the wreckage of the Titanic. The company promoted the initiative, which then cost more than $100,000 a person, as the “first manned submersible survey of the world’s most famous shipwreck since 2005.”

“Since her sinking 105 years ago, fewer than 200 people have ever visited the wreck, far fewer than have flown to space or climbed Mount Everest, so this is an incredible opportunity to explore one of the most rarely seen and revered landmarks on the planet,” Rush wrote in a 2017 news release.

When the time came to officially welcome the Titan submersible, Rush turned to Tony Nissen, OceanGate’s director of engineering, at the ceremony in Washington state. Naturally, he asked him to christen the Titan by smashing a bottle against it.

“And with this, I hereby christen Titan,” Nissen said, smashing the bottle to the delight of the roughly 20 people there whooping and hollering.

More than five years later, rescue teams are hoping to see the submersible and its passengers again.

(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Timothy Bella