June 18, 2025 • 24 mins
With Netflix's new Titan: The OceanGate Disaster attracting acclaim and attention two years after the disaster, one home-grown expert joined the Afternoons team to open up about working with OceanGate.
Kiwi deep sea specialist Rob McCallum has spent years exploring the ocean's wonders, and lent his perspective to the Netflix documentary.
He joined the Matt Heath and Tyler Adams to explain further.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk zed B. Follow
this and our Wide Ranger podcast now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well New Zealander. Rob McCullum is a pioneer in the
world a deep sea dive, and he's broken the record
for the deepest dive to Challenger deep in the Marianas Trench,
the lowest point on Earth at almost eleven thousand meters
below sea level with the likes of James Cameron. He
was also a key voice in the incredibly popular Netflix
documentary Titaned the ocean Gate sub mercible disaster, where he
(00:37):
shares his attempts to warn founder Stockton of the immense
danger of that project before the tragic complosion in twenty
twenty three. It is a great pleasure to welcome Rob
McCullum to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Good afternoon, Rob.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
For listens who may not know your background, what first
drew you into deep sea expiration? Tell us a little
bit about your nostellar career, and then how did you
come to advise ocean Gate.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I started with six thousand meter vehicles working on Rex
such as the Titanic and the Bismarck, and then more
recently into follow some depth vehicles which head all the
way down to almost eleven thousand meters as deep as
you can possibly go. My involvement with ocean Gate was
back in their early years when they were using a
couple of classed vehicles a couple of certified vehicles to
(01:22):
do work in Puget Sound around Seattle, and then it
ended when they decided to go out into deep order
in an experimental craft.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Tell us what it's like to arrive down there at
the Titanic for the first time. That must be quite something.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
It's absolutely it's an incredible experience. One because of the size.
You know, I think that it's not often you get
a chance, unless you're a dock worker to stand or
be located at the bow of a ship and to
look up at the immense size of it. And you know,
Titanic was over eight hundred and eighty feet long. She
(02:01):
was a big vessel. So the first impression is one
of size. The second is one of grace and beauty.
We simply don't build ocean liners with that sort of
design charm in them. And she's an incredibly beautiful lady,
even in her old age.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
And how close can you actually get to the Titanic.
You basically can float around right on the deck, can't you.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
You can? I mean, you know there are parts of
the wreck where there are debris, and you know, lifeboat
extinctions and cables and that sort of thing that you
want to maintain a respectful distance, and honestly is you know,
it's good to be sort of twenty to fifteen meters
away because then you can use the lights to illuminate
the greater scene and you get more of an appreciation
(02:47):
of size and shape when you're a little bit away from.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Her and you've been deeper than anyone else in the world.
What's it like eleven thousand meters down? What are you
seeing down there?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
We are seeing life, believe it or not. Even at
thirty five thousand feet or ten nine hundred meters, we're
seeing life. But we are also seeing things that have
never been seen before, simply because humans haven't had the
opportunity to visit that part of our planet very often.
So we're seeing new forms of life, and we're seeing
(03:19):
new kinds of bathymetry, you know, which helped give us
information about how our planet was formed.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Rob you've obviously got a huge reputation for orchestrating some
of the most extraordinary adventures imaginable. How does a guy
from New Zealand come to be one of the foremost
experts in deep ocean diving.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Oh, it's one of those things, a happy a series
of happy accidents, you know, just meeting the right people
and being in the right place at the right time,
starting out in the scuba world and then into the
shallow subs, and then into the medium depth subs and
now into the extreme depth. And you know, it's a
pretty small group of people, so it doesn't take long
(03:56):
to establish a reputation and become someone that people look
for when they're wanting to head deep.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Where does that drive come from for you? Did you
have explore heroes when you were growing up?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I did I follow in the footsteps of Sir Edmund
Hillary and Sir Peter Blake. Yeah, you know both because
they did what they loved to do. They had a
passion and they followed it. But also once they'd achieved
their sort of operational goals or their stretch goals, they
converted their lives into giving back and into philanthropy. And
(04:29):
that's exactly the model I seek to follow.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
You're obviously not a man who suffers from claustrophobia.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Is there fear you still have a healthy amount of
fear when you're going down to an extreme depth?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
No, because not in the sub I mean, you know,
I have to qualify that by saying that, you know,
everybody suffers from fear. I mean, if you don't suffer
from some degree of fear, you're probably some sort of psychopath.
But but there's a huge Yeah, there's a huge difference
in the way that people manage fear. And you know,
(05:07):
people that are not not used to being in frightening
situations usually suffer from a deer response, you know, like
a deer in the headlights and they freeze. But when
you see people who are often in frightening situations, and
you could include a lot of soldiers at police, firefighters,
people that have to confront a fearful situation develop the
(05:28):
knack of working their way through it, not getting caught
in the headlights, but actually you know, working steadily through
a solution to get themselves out of that fix. But
I have to say that, you know, the most important
part of my job is actually avoiding the risk that
creates those fearful situations. I'm never fearful in a sub
(05:48):
because they have been prepared by a team of experts,
by a team of engineers, and all of the risk
is being mitigated out of them.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
And we will come back to that, rob But working
with the likes of James Cameron and Victor Viskovov, did
they have a similar thirst to you? Could you see
that within those sorts of people that they weren't there
might have been a level of fear, but more excitement
and getting into the unknown and that explorer spirit.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yes, absolutely, and very similar in a lot of regards.
Jim is an explorer at heart, with a bit of
filmmaking on the side to pay for his habit. You know,
he's very, very accomplished obviously at making movies and he
enjoys it. But in his heart he is an explorer
and he's done a great deal for ocean exploration and
(06:36):
bringing the feeling of exploring the ocean into people's TV screens.
Victor is a different, similar, bit different. You know. Victor
is an adventurer. He likes to push himself and he
came into ocean exploration almost by accident because he was
looking for his next big thing. He wanted to go
to the Marianas Trench because it was the deepest point
(06:58):
of the world's ocean. And then he worked out that
no one had been to the deepest point of the
other four oceans, and so that's what formed the Five
Deeps expedition.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Now, speaking of of screens and TV, the ocean Gate
documentary on Netflix, you say there was no way of
knowing when Titan was going to fail, but it was
a mathematical certainty that it would fail. It walked away
from the Titan project. What were the specific red flags
you saw that made you not want to be involved
at all.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
That's a good question, And you know it's interesting because
I was explained to someone the other day. You know,
the sequence of the documentary is quite right. You know,
I left ocean Gate even before they built anything. I
left when Stockton decided that he was going to build
an unclassed vehicle, and then I spent even after I'd left,
(07:46):
I spent two years sort of trying to turn him
around because I didn't want anyone to get hurt. The
red flags for me was the inability to listen and
the inability to consult outside of the group. So I
think a very important hallmark of leadership is being able
to solicit counterviews and then to consider them and be
(08:07):
prepared to change your stance or your approach based on
that feedback. And if you're not prepared to do that,
if you're not even prepared to hear account of you,
then you're already beginning to set yourself up for a failure.
So that was the first red flag. The second red
flag was the fired Dave Lockrichs, chief pilot, for blowing
(08:30):
the whissaw on several safety concerns. And that's a big
red flag. I mean, when you not only are not
prepared to listen to a core member of your staff
point out in a very professional manner where all of
the faults are, but then you go on to fire
that person and then you sue them in court to
keep them quiet. That's a real problem.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
We're talking to the New Zealand deep sea explorer and
expert Rob McCallum now speaking of Stockton Rush, who's the CEO.
Some people stood up, but some people didn't. He seems
to have created an almost cult like following at Ocean
Gate that may have led to the disaster. That suggests
charisma and your experience. What kind of person was stocked
(09:13):
and rush was? Was he charismatic? Did did he draw
you in it all?
Speaker 3 (09:18):
He is a very He was a very charming guy,
very charismatic. But it didn't take very long to work
out that it was his way or the highway. You know.
He was very tenacious, very single minded that his way
was right, and he just wouldn't entertain anything anything different,
(09:40):
and so it didn't. It doesn't take long to see
through people like that.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
The Titans carbon fiber hull has been called a death
trap before the tragic events that led to its implosion.
Can you please explain in playing language why carbon fiber
behaves so differently under a deep ocean pressure compared with
say steel or titanium.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Steel and titanium are obviously metals that are of a
known composition, and they are well understood by engineers. You
can give the engineer the type of material that you're
wanting to use, what sort of pressure it's going to
be put under, what sort of gauge or thickness the
vehicle will be constructed to, and they'll be able to
(10:25):
calculate for you what the safe dive depth of that
submersible would be so for instance, when we built limiting factor,
which is the submersible, we used to go to foloation
depth almost eleven thousand meters. We were able to calculate
even before she made it off the drawing board exactly
(10:45):
how much pressure that hull would be able to sustain,
so that when we got to the test facility and
we tested it to one point two five times that pressure,
she behaved exactly as we'd calculated out back on the
drawing board. Can't do that with carbon fiber, and so
it's not that carbon fiber is weaker, it's that carbon
(11:05):
fiber is not predictable, right, And the reason for that
is that carbon fiber is a composite material. It's made
up of carbon fiber, which is essentially string that's held
in place by a resin or a glue. And so
when you're making a carbon fiber submersible, you are relying
(11:29):
on the quality of the carbon fiber, the quality of
the resin the way that the application is made on
the day, the humidity, the temperature, how fast it's allowed
to cool, and that sort of thing, and it's not
going to be consistent material. It's going to have a
lot of variation in it, and because of that, it's
impossible to say where it's when it's going to break.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
When you watch the documentary, Rob, were you alarmed at
some of the evidence that was presented in that documentary.
We talk about the carbon fiber hull and the audible
popping that was being measured as it was going down
into the ocean, and stocked and rush cooling, that seasoning
with no scientific grigor behind that was they some of
the elements you didn't know that were quite alarming when
(12:10):
you watch the documentary.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
You know, I appear in the documentary. I filmed my
segment back in December, but none of us that appeared
in the documentary actually knew all of the evidence that
was presented. We saw it for the first time, you know,
last week, and it was absolutely terrifying. I mean, that
sound is the most frightening sound I've ever heard in
(12:35):
the ocean, and I cannot fathom how anybody got into
that vehicle twice. I mean I was literally sitting beside
Dave Lockritch in the theater when we watched the premiere,
and when I heard that sound, I grabbed him by
the knee and I said, how the hell did they do? That.
I don't understand how they kept doing that again and
(12:57):
again and again. And I don't say that melodramatically, but
they tested a half sized model and it imploded early.
Then they built another model and imploded even earlier. And
then they built a hull and they essentially destroyed it
to the point where it would have imploded if they'd
done another dive, and then they did the last hull.
(13:19):
I just don't know how they ignored all the warning
signs along the way.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
We're talking to the New Zealand deep sea explorer and
expert Rob McCallum. Obviously there was a terrible tragedy and
horrible that people lost their lives, but there must be
some small satisfaction wouldn't be the word, but for people
like Dave that were so mistreated for the true story
to be out now for the world to see, especially
(13:43):
considering he was taken to court for trying to call
out the situation.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Absolutely. I mean after the premiere, we were interviewed about
you know, do you feel vindicated, and it's like, you know, honestly,
we feel sick. Yeah, because we tried so very hard,
him as inside man, as me and outside man to
try and get Stockton to see the light and stop
what he was doing. And we tried very hard and failed,
(14:08):
and five people lost their lives, and you know, one
was Stockton, and you know it's kind of he had
that coming to him. He was determined to follow that path.
Two others were warned and knew the risks and took
their chances, and the other two were complete innocence. Yeah,
and it's them that I feel the most sorrow for.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I mean, they could have rightly expected what was essentially
a tourism expedition, but that they could have expected a
level of safety in there. Do you believe that you
did everything that you that you could is there? Do
you feel that there was nothing more you could do
to stop them?
Speaker 3 (14:44):
No? I don't. I mean, I don't think there was
anything more because we you know, initially on the formal
side of things, we got that information to OSHA, you know,
the Occupational Safety and Health folks, and also to the
Coast Guard. And those are the two entities, one state
and one federal, that had the authority to actually put
(15:05):
a stop to it, and they didn't. But they have
the league authority. Neither Dave nor I have any authority
at all. So then we switched to the informal approach,
and I spent the last three years sort of sabotage
in the operation by making it clear that anybody that
was wanting to go in Titan should give me a
call first. And I think there's something like three dozen
(15:27):
people that we talked out of going in the vehicle,
many of whom are now in touch and extremely grateful.
But the other two, the most important, were the investors
who called and said is this a good investment and
able to say no, and here is why. And I
think in some ways that sped up the demise of Oceangate.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
The mentality of Stockton Rush rob and clearly throughout the documentary, yourself, David,
many many others tried to warn him on the dangers,
the critical dangers, and they are either pushed aside or silenced.
How do you deal with someone with that mentality? I mean,
is there anything that you can do when someone is
that driven and that cavalier, in that much of a maverick.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It is tough, and it does depend on where you
are in the world. You know, there's a difference between
the US where I am now and New Zealand. You know,
Stockton was Stockton, and you know, we're all very clear
now about how far he was prepared to go. But
the Stocktons of the world don't act in isolation. They
(16:31):
are enabled. They are enabled by in this case, by
engineers who should have known better. I mean, in the
documentary you hear Tony Nissen say I was the chief engineer.
I assembled the vehicle, I never left. I was fired
when it didn't work properly. Would you have gotten the sub? Oh?
(16:51):
Absolutely not. What sort of an engineer would build something
that they themselves wouldn't go into. So there's the engineers,
there's the lawyers, there's the marketeers, there's the board, there's
the senior management. Anybody that remained in Ocean Gay after
Lockridge was very publicly fired, has some explaining to do.
(17:13):
Anybody that was in the company and actually aiding and
a betting people getting into the sub after what they
call dive eighty, those people are, you know, I think,
are going to go for the high jump because they
knew that the sub was badly damaged.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Now you have founded a company that operates certified submersibles
with a perfect safety record. What are the critical checkpoints
from designed to dive that a you know, I guess
a reputable operator would would follow, and that ocean gate ignored.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
I mean, you know, we call the process classing or
getting classed, and it's just a fancy word in the
marine world that means certified. And so the process of
classing a submersible or getting it certified by an independent
agency of which there are sticks in the world, starts
right back at the drawing board where you design the
(18:08):
shape of the submersible and you work out the pressure
that it's going to be under, so that gives you
what sort of thickness, what sort of strength that it
needs to have. All those calculations are submitted to a
class society who sign off on your figures, and then
they sign off on all the materials that you want
to use. And in our case, we were building a
(18:30):
submersible out of titanium that was going to full ocean depth.
So they actually were at the factory where the material
was forged and they put their stamp on it to
say this is the bona fide material that we're going
to now follow all the way through the manufacturing process.
They sign off on every step of the manufacturing process.
(18:53):
They sign off on harbor trials, sea trials, and then
finally they take a surveyor from the class Society all
the way down to full ocean depth, and while he's
at full ocean depth, he signs the papers to give
the Sabbats classification. So the process is right from the
drawing board all the way to the first proper dive.
(19:15):
And it's not a process that you can interrupt halfway
through and suddenly decide that you're going to get classed.
You have to do that from the very first step.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
We're talking to New Zealand deep sea explorer and expert
Rob McCallum, who was featured on the Netflix Titan ocean
Gate disaster documentary. Now this is probably a difficult question
to answer, but what were your first thoughts when you
heard that the ocean Gate disaster had taken place.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Oh, I was running an expedition off about one hundred
miles north of Papua New Guinea. So I was at
sea and it was like three or four o'clock in
the morning and I got a call from someone who said,
you know, the subs imploded. We've just heard the signature.
So I knew straight away that it imploded, and I
sort of was confused over the following three or four
(20:01):
days because there was the oxygen countdown and you know,
the race against time, and it's like these guys died
in a blink. I mean, what are we doing with
the search and rescue exercise? So there was a lot
of confusion in those first few days. I was not
surprised from a technical point of view. Obviously we'd been
expecting it. Until I saw the documentary last week. I
(20:25):
had no idea how bad things it actually got with
an ocean Gate. I will never understand how Stockton actually
got that first hull through sea trials. I mean, I
honestly most of my colleagues expected that the sub would
fail in the first sea trial and that would be
the end of the sub and Stockton and ocean Gate.
So we were always very confused as how they managed
(20:48):
to get through those first few dives.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Now, and the docu stated that Stockton saw an opportunity
to restart tourists visits to Titanic or start them stocked,
and fully believed in what he was doing that it
would work. You've been deeper than anyone in various vessels.
Do you think deep sea tourism like ocean Gate was
trying to get going as possible or is it just
too dangerous.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
No, it's absolutely possible. I mean, if you look at
the rest of the sub industry over the last fifty years,
there's been tens of millions of people that have been
for a dive and a sub and there's never been
an incident. An ocean Gate was outside of the industry,
absolutely refused any advice from the industry, went out of
their way to work around all the rules that the
(21:30):
industry follows, and they paid a terrible, terrible price. But
my sort of most ambitious dive, if you like, has
been in too challenge a deep in the Marianna's trench.
But my most rewarding dive was in a tourist sub
in Hawaii. The people in front of me were from Kansas,
the people behind me were from Oklahoma. They'd never seen
(21:53):
the ocean before, they'd never been on the ocean before,
they most certainly had never been underneath it. And to
hear their commentary and to hear their worldview open up
in real time was just amazing. And I certainly hope
that tens of millions of more people get that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I'm getting goosebumps is here and you talk about that, Rob, Yeah,
absolutely incredible to have that opportunity. Final question from me, Rob,
as you mentioned, you were sitting by David Lockridge at
the premiere. How's David doing now?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
You know, he's good, I mean, you know, good compared
to where he was. I mean, he used to really
swing from sort of survivors guilt through to blind rage,
but at that's sort of leveled to the point where
now that it's coming out, the documentaries are out, but
the formal investigation report will be out probably this month,
(22:49):
and that'll take a little while for people to digest.
But obviously the federal agencies that are involved with the
prosecutions have already been in touch over the last couple
of years, and then I think you'll see justice being
done and that'll be the final chapter in the ocean
Gate story.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Rub After decades of pushing underwater boundaries, are you still
passionate about the deepotion. What are your thoughts about the
balance of ambition to see and do great things and
safety and has this accident tainted at all your feelings
towards the industry.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I mean, we run an expedition company, you know, We've
completed over eighteen hundred expeditions, all of them safe and successful.
You know, I don't introduce myself as an explorer because
people expect someone taller wearing a pith helmet with a
big gun for tigers or something. But you know, we're
in the we're in the business of full time exploration,
(23:43):
and you know that comes with an image, but the
reality is that we spend most of our time identifying
risks and mitigating risks before we even leave home, because
it doesn't count as a world first or a world
record unless everybody makes it back alive. So we're not
you know, we are explorers, we are expeditioners, but we
(24:04):
are not really sort of extreme adventure types who are
prepared to everything on the line. And I think that
that will continue because the ocean is it covers seventy
one percent of our planet, and there are answers in
the ocean that will help us with some of the
challenges that we have as a species in the future.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Well, thank you so much for talking to us, Rob.
You know, you're a great New Zealand. It was inspirational
seeing you on the dock, and it's inspirational reading about
everything and you've done, and seeing what you've done so
absolute honor and a privilege to talk to you today.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
For more from News Talks, ed B. Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk zed B. Follow
this and our Wide Ranger podcast now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well New Zealander. Rob McCullum is a pioneer in the
world a deep sea dive, and he's broken the record
for the deepest dive to Challenger deep in the Marianas Trench,
the lowest point on Earth at almost eleven thousand meters
below sea level with the likes of James Cameron. He
was also a key voice in the incredibly popular Netflix
documentary Titaned the ocean Gate sub mercible disaster, where he
(00:37):
shares his attempts to warn founder Stockton of the immense
danger of that project before the tragic complosion in twenty
twenty three. It is a great pleasure to welcome Rob
McCullum to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Good afternoon, Rob.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
For listens who may not know your background, what first
drew you into deep sea expiration? Tell us a little
bit about your nostellar career, and then how did you
come to advise ocean Gate.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I started with six thousand meter vehicles working on Rex
such as the Titanic and the Bismarck, and then more
recently into follow some depth vehicles which head all the
way down to almost eleven thousand meters as deep as
you can possibly go. My involvement with ocean Gate was
back in their early years when they were using a
couple of classed vehicles a couple of certified vehicles to
(01:22):
do work in Puget Sound around Seattle, and then it
ended when they decided to go out into deep order
in an experimental craft.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Tell us what it's like to arrive down there at
the Titanic for the first time. That must be quite something.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
It's absolutely it's an incredible experience. One because of the size.
You know, I think that it's not often you get
a chance, unless you're a dock worker to stand or
be located at the bow of a ship and to
look up at the immense size of it. And you know,
Titanic was over eight hundred and eighty feet long. She
(02:01):
was a big vessel. So the first impression is one
of size. The second is one of grace and beauty.
We simply don't build ocean liners with that sort of
design charm in them. And she's an incredibly beautiful lady,
even in her old age.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
And how close can you actually get to the Titanic.
You basically can float around right on the deck, can't you.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
You can? I mean, you know there are parts of
the wreck where there are debris, and you know, lifeboat
extinctions and cables and that sort of thing that you
want to maintain a respectful distance, and honestly is you know,
it's good to be sort of twenty to fifteen meters
away because then you can use the lights to illuminate
the greater scene and you get more of an appreciation
(02:47):
of size and shape when you're a little bit away from.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Her and you've been deeper than anyone else in the world.
What's it like eleven thousand meters down? What are you
seeing down there?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
We are seeing life, believe it or not. Even at
thirty five thousand feet or ten nine hundred meters, we're
seeing life. But we are also seeing things that have
never been seen before, simply because humans haven't had the
opportunity to visit that part of our planet very often.
So we're seeing new forms of life, and we're seeing
(03:19):
new kinds of bathymetry, you know, which helped give us
information about how our planet was formed.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Rob you've obviously got a huge reputation for orchestrating some
of the most extraordinary adventures imaginable. How does a guy
from New Zealand come to be one of the foremost
experts in deep ocean diving.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Oh, it's one of those things, a happy a series
of happy accidents, you know, just meeting the right people
and being in the right place at the right time,
starting out in the scuba world and then into the
shallow subs, and then into the medium depth subs and
now into the extreme depth. And you know, it's a
pretty small group of people, so it doesn't take long
(03:56):
to establish a reputation and become someone that people look
for when they're wanting to head deep.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Where does that drive come from for you? Did you
have explore heroes when you were growing up?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I did I follow in the footsteps of Sir Edmund
Hillary and Sir Peter Blake. Yeah, you know both because
they did what they loved to do. They had a
passion and they followed it. But also once they'd achieved
their sort of operational goals or their stretch goals, they
converted their lives into giving back and into philanthropy. And
(04:29):
that's exactly the model I seek to follow.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
You're obviously not a man who suffers from claustrophobia.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Is there fear you still have a healthy amount of
fear when you're going down to an extreme depth?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
No, because not in the sub I mean, you know,
I have to qualify that by saying that, you know,
everybody suffers from fear. I mean, if you don't suffer
from some degree of fear, you're probably some sort of psychopath.
But but there's a huge Yeah, there's a huge difference
in the way that people manage fear. And you know,
(05:07):
people that are not not used to being in frightening
situations usually suffer from a deer response, you know, like
a deer in the headlights and they freeze. But when
you see people who are often in frightening situations, and
you could include a lot of soldiers at police, firefighters,
people that have to confront a fearful situation develop the
(05:28):
knack of working their way through it, not getting caught
in the headlights, but actually you know, working steadily through
a solution to get themselves out of that fix. But
I have to say that, you know, the most important
part of my job is actually avoiding the risk that
creates those fearful situations. I'm never fearful in a sub
(05:48):
because they have been prepared by a team of experts,
by a team of engineers, and all of the risk
is being mitigated out of them.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
And we will come back to that, rob But working
with the likes of James Cameron and Victor Viskovov, did
they have a similar thirst to you? Could you see
that within those sorts of people that they weren't there
might have been a level of fear, but more excitement
and getting into the unknown and that explorer spirit.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yes, absolutely, and very similar in a lot of regards.
Jim is an explorer at heart, with a bit of
filmmaking on the side to pay for his habit. You know,
he's very, very accomplished obviously at making movies and he
enjoys it. But in his heart he is an explorer
and he's done a great deal for ocean exploration and
(06:36):
bringing the feeling of exploring the ocean into people's TV screens.
Victor is a different, similar, bit different. You know. Victor
is an adventurer. He likes to push himself and he
came into ocean exploration almost by accident because he was
looking for his next big thing. He wanted to go
to the Marianas Trench because it was the deepest point
(06:58):
of the world's ocean. And then he worked out that
no one had been to the deepest point of the
other four oceans, and so that's what formed the Five
Deeps expedition.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Now, speaking of of screens and TV, the ocean Gate
documentary on Netflix, you say there was no way of
knowing when Titan was going to fail, but it was
a mathematical certainty that it would fail. It walked away
from the Titan project. What were the specific red flags
you saw that made you not want to be involved
at all.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
That's a good question, And you know it's interesting because
I was explained to someone the other day. You know,
the sequence of the documentary is quite right. You know,
I left ocean Gate even before they built anything. I
left when Stockton decided that he was going to build
an unclassed vehicle, and then I spent even after I'd left,
(07:46):
I spent two years sort of trying to turn him
around because I didn't want anyone to get hurt. The
red flags for me was the inability to listen and
the inability to consult outside of the group. So I
think a very important hallmark of leadership is being able
to solicit counterviews and then to consider them and be
(08:07):
prepared to change your stance or your approach based on
that feedback. And if you're not prepared to do that,
if you're not even prepared to hear account of you,
then you're already beginning to set yourself up for a failure.
So that was the first red flag. The second red
flag was the fired Dave Lockrichs, chief pilot, for blowing
(08:30):
the whissaw on several safety concerns. And that's a big
red flag. I mean, when you not only are not
prepared to listen to a core member of your staff
point out in a very professional manner where all of
the faults are, but then you go on to fire
that person and then you sue them in court to
keep them quiet. That's a real problem.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
We're talking to the New Zealand deep sea explorer and
expert Rob McCallum now speaking of Stockton Rush, who's the CEO.
Some people stood up, but some people didn't. He seems
to have created an almost cult like following at Ocean
Gate that may have led to the disaster. That suggests
charisma and your experience. What kind of person was stocked
(09:13):
and rush was? Was he charismatic? Did did he draw
you in it all?
Speaker 3 (09:18):
He is a very He was a very charming guy,
very charismatic. But it didn't take very long to work
out that it was his way or the highway. You know.
He was very tenacious, very single minded that his way
was right, and he just wouldn't entertain anything anything different,
(09:40):
and so it didn't. It doesn't take long to see
through people like that.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
The Titans carbon fiber hull has been called a death
trap before the tragic events that led to its implosion.
Can you please explain in playing language why carbon fiber
behaves so differently under a deep ocean pressure compared with
say steel or titanium.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Steel and titanium are obviously metals that are of a
known composition, and they are well understood by engineers. You
can give the engineer the type of material that you're
wanting to use, what sort of pressure it's going to
be put under, what sort of gauge or thickness the
vehicle will be constructed to, and they'll be able to
(10:25):
calculate for you what the safe dive depth of that
submersible would be so for instance, when we built limiting factor,
which is the submersible, we used to go to foloation
depth almost eleven thousand meters. We were able to calculate
even before she made it off the drawing board exactly
(10:45):
how much pressure that hull would be able to sustain,
so that when we got to the test facility and
we tested it to one point two five times that pressure,
she behaved exactly as we'd calculated out back on the
drawing board. Can't do that with carbon fiber, and so
it's not that carbon fiber is weaker, it's that carbon
(11:05):
fiber is not predictable, right, And the reason for that
is that carbon fiber is a composite material. It's made
up of carbon fiber, which is essentially string that's held
in place by a resin or a glue. And so
when you're making a carbon fiber submersible, you are relying
(11:29):
on the quality of the carbon fiber, the quality of
the resin the way that the application is made on
the day, the humidity, the temperature, how fast it's allowed
to cool, and that sort of thing, and it's not
going to be consistent material. It's going to have a
lot of variation in it, and because of that, it's
impossible to say where it's when it's going to break.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
When you watch the documentary, Rob, were you alarmed at
some of the evidence that was presented in that documentary.
We talk about the carbon fiber hull and the audible
popping that was being measured as it was going down
into the ocean, and stocked and rush cooling, that seasoning
with no scientific grigor behind that was they some of
the elements you didn't know that were quite alarming when
(12:10):
you watch the documentary.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
You know, I appear in the documentary. I filmed my
segment back in December, but none of us that appeared
in the documentary actually knew all of the evidence that
was presented. We saw it for the first time, you know,
last week, and it was absolutely terrifying. I mean, that
sound is the most frightening sound I've ever heard in
(12:35):
the ocean, and I cannot fathom how anybody got into
that vehicle twice. I mean I was literally sitting beside
Dave Lockritch in the theater when we watched the premiere,
and when I heard that sound, I grabbed him by
the knee and I said, how the hell did they do? That.
I don't understand how they kept doing that again and
(12:57):
again and again. And I don't say that melodramatically, but
they tested a half sized model and it imploded early.
Then they built another model and imploded even earlier. And
then they built a hull and they essentially destroyed it
to the point where it would have imploded if they'd
done another dive, and then they did the last hull.
(13:19):
I just don't know how they ignored all the warning
signs along the way.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
We're talking to the New Zealand deep sea explorer and
expert Rob McCallum. Obviously there was a terrible tragedy and
horrible that people lost their lives, but there must be
some small satisfaction wouldn't be the word, but for people
like Dave that were so mistreated for the true story
to be out now for the world to see, especially
(13:43):
considering he was taken to court for trying to call
out the situation.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Absolutely. I mean after the premiere, we were interviewed about
you know, do you feel vindicated, and it's like, you know, honestly,
we feel sick. Yeah, because we tried so very hard,
him as inside man, as me and outside man to
try and get Stockton to see the light and stop
what he was doing. And we tried very hard and failed,
(14:08):
and five people lost their lives, and you know, one
was Stockton, and you know it's kind of he had
that coming to him. He was determined to follow that path.
Two others were warned and knew the risks and took
their chances, and the other two were complete innocence. Yeah,
and it's them that I feel the most sorrow for.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I mean, they could have rightly expected what was essentially
a tourism expedition, but that they could have expected a
level of safety in there. Do you believe that you
did everything that you that you could is there? Do
you feel that there was nothing more you could do
to stop them?
Speaker 3 (14:44):
No? I don't. I mean, I don't think there was
anything more because we you know, initially on the formal
side of things, we got that information to OSHA, you know,
the Occupational Safety and Health folks, and also to the
Coast Guard. And those are the two entities, one state
and one federal, that had the authority to actually put
(15:05):
a stop to it, and they didn't. But they have
the league authority. Neither Dave nor I have any authority
at all. So then we switched to the informal approach,
and I spent the last three years sort of sabotage
in the operation by making it clear that anybody that
was wanting to go in Titan should give me a
call first. And I think there's something like three dozen
(15:27):
people that we talked out of going in the vehicle,
many of whom are now in touch and extremely grateful.
But the other two, the most important, were the investors
who called and said is this a good investment and
able to say no, and here is why. And I
think in some ways that sped up the demise of Oceangate.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
The mentality of Stockton Rush rob and clearly throughout the documentary, yourself, David,
many many others tried to warn him on the dangers,
the critical dangers, and they are either pushed aside or silenced.
How do you deal with someone with that mentality? I mean,
is there anything that you can do when someone is
that driven and that cavalier, in that much of a maverick.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It is tough, and it does depend on where you
are in the world. You know, there's a difference between
the US where I am now and New Zealand. You know,
Stockton was Stockton, and you know, we're all very clear
now about how far he was prepared to go. But
the Stocktons of the world don't act in isolation. They
(16:31):
are enabled. They are enabled by in this case, by
engineers who should have known better. I mean, in the
documentary you hear Tony Nissen say I was the chief engineer.
I assembled the vehicle, I never left. I was fired
when it didn't work properly. Would you have gotten the sub? Oh?
(16:51):
Absolutely not. What sort of an engineer would build something
that they themselves wouldn't go into. So there's the engineers,
there's the lawyers, there's the marketeers, there's the board, there's
the senior management. Anybody that remained in Ocean Gay after
Lockridge was very publicly fired, has some explaining to do.
(17:13):
Anybody that was in the company and actually aiding and
a betting people getting into the sub after what they
call dive eighty, those people are, you know, I think,
are going to go for the high jump because they
knew that the sub was badly damaged.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Now you have founded a company that operates certified submersibles
with a perfect safety record. What are the critical checkpoints
from designed to dive that a you know, I guess
a reputable operator would would follow, and that ocean gate ignored.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
I mean, you know, we call the process classing or
getting classed, and it's just a fancy word in the
marine world that means certified. And so the process of
classing a submersible or getting it certified by an independent
agency of which there are sticks in the world, starts
right back at the drawing board where you design the
(18:08):
shape of the submersible and you work out the pressure
that it's going to be under, so that gives you
what sort of thickness, what sort of strength that it
needs to have. All those calculations are submitted to a
class society who sign off on your figures, and then
they sign off on all the materials that you want
to use. And in our case, we were building a
(18:30):
submersible out of titanium that was going to full ocean depth.
So they actually were at the factory where the material
was forged and they put their stamp on it to
say this is the bona fide material that we're going
to now follow all the way through the manufacturing process.
They sign off on every step of the manufacturing process.
(18:53):
They sign off on harbor trials, sea trials, and then
finally they take a surveyor from the class Society all
the way down to full ocean depth, and while he's
at full ocean depth, he signs the papers to give
the Sabbats classification. So the process is right from the
drawing board all the way to the first proper dive.
(19:15):
And it's not a process that you can interrupt halfway
through and suddenly decide that you're going to get classed.
You have to do that from the very first step.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
We're talking to New Zealand deep sea explorer and expert
Rob McCallum, who was featured on the Netflix Titan ocean
Gate disaster documentary. Now this is probably a difficult question
to answer, but what were your first thoughts when you
heard that the ocean Gate disaster had taken place.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Oh, I was running an expedition off about one hundred
miles north of Papua New Guinea. So I was at
sea and it was like three or four o'clock in
the morning and I got a call from someone who said,
you know, the subs imploded. We've just heard the signature.
So I knew straight away that it imploded, and I
sort of was confused over the following three or four
(20:01):
days because there was the oxygen countdown and you know,
the race against time, and it's like these guys died
in a blink. I mean, what are we doing with
the search and rescue exercise? So there was a lot
of confusion in those first few days. I was not
surprised from a technical point of view. Obviously we'd been
expecting it. Until I saw the documentary last week. I
(20:25):
had no idea how bad things it actually got with
an ocean Gate. I will never understand how Stockton actually
got that first hull through sea trials. I mean, I
honestly most of my colleagues expected that the sub would
fail in the first sea trial and that would be
the end of the sub and Stockton and ocean Gate.
So we were always very confused as how they managed
(20:48):
to get through those first few dives.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Now, and the docu stated that Stockton saw an opportunity
to restart tourists visits to Titanic or start them stocked,
and fully believed in what he was doing that it
would work. You've been deeper than anyone in various vessels.
Do you think deep sea tourism like ocean Gate was
trying to get going as possible or is it just
too dangerous.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
No, it's absolutely possible. I mean, if you look at
the rest of the sub industry over the last fifty years,
there's been tens of millions of people that have been
for a dive and a sub and there's never been
an incident. An ocean Gate was outside of the industry,
absolutely refused any advice from the industry, went out of
their way to work around all the rules that the
(21:30):
industry follows, and they paid a terrible, terrible price. But
my sort of most ambitious dive, if you like, has
been in too challenge a deep in the Marianna's trench.
But my most rewarding dive was in a tourist sub
in Hawaii. The people in front of me were from Kansas,
the people behind me were from Oklahoma. They'd never seen
(21:53):
the ocean before, they'd never been on the ocean before,
they most certainly had never been underneath it. And to
hear their commentary and to hear their worldview open up
in real time was just amazing. And I certainly hope
that tens of millions of more people get that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I'm getting goosebumps is here and you talk about that, Rob, Yeah,
absolutely incredible to have that opportunity. Final question from me, Rob,
as you mentioned, you were sitting by David Lockridge at
the premiere. How's David doing now?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
You know, he's good, I mean, you know, good compared
to where he was. I mean, he used to really
swing from sort of survivors guilt through to blind rage,
but at that's sort of leveled to the point where
now that it's coming out, the documentaries are out, but
the formal investigation report will be out probably this month,
(22:49):
and that'll take a little while for people to digest.
But obviously the federal agencies that are involved with the
prosecutions have already been in touch over the last couple
of years, and then I think you'll see justice being
done and that'll be the final chapter in the ocean
Gate story.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Rub After decades of pushing underwater boundaries, are you still
passionate about the deepotion. What are your thoughts about the
balance of ambition to see and do great things and
safety and has this accident tainted at all your feelings
towards the industry.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I mean, we run an expedition company, you know, We've
completed over eighteen hundred expeditions, all of them safe and successful.
You know, I don't introduce myself as an explorer because
people expect someone taller wearing a pith helmet with a
big gun for tigers or something. But you know, we're
in the we're in the business of full time exploration,
(23:43):
and you know that comes with an image, but the
reality is that we spend most of our time identifying
risks and mitigating risks before we even leave home, because
it doesn't count as a world first or a world
record unless everybody makes it back alive. So we're not
you know, we are explorers, we are expeditioners, but we
(24:04):
are not really sort of extreme adventure types who are
prepared to everything on the line. And I think that
that will continue because the ocean is it covers seventy
one percent of our planet, and there are answers in
the ocean that will help us with some of the
challenges that we have as a species in the future.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Well, thank you so much for talking to us, Rob.
You know, you're a great New Zealand. It was inspirational
seeing you on the dock, and it's inspirational reading about
everything and you've done, and seeing what you've done so
absolute honor and a privilege to talk to you today.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
For more from News Talks, ed B. Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.