Former OceanGate employee testifies CEO said he would ‘buy a congressman’ if the Coast Guard blocked Titan expedition

Former OceanGate employee Matthew McCoy testified Friday that at a lunch meeting in September 2017, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush told him that if he ran into any issues with the US Coast Guard ahead of the Titan expedition, Rush “would buy a congressman” and make the problems “go away.”

McCoy, a former Coast Guard member who was in the US Coast Guard Reserve at the time, brought up safety and regulatory concerns about the expedition at the meeting which Rush said they would get past by going through the Bahamas and launching out of Canada.

“The conversation basically ended when he, after explaining that the Coast Guard had tried to shut him down, down in California, and that he wouldn’t operate there anymore, but that if the Coast Guard became a problem, that he would buy himself a congressman and make it go away,” McCoy said during the final day of the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation’s hearing.

“Mr. McCoy, is that a direct quote?” asked Jason Neubauer, the chair of the Coast Guard’s Marine Board investigation that is reviewing the cause of the Titan’s implosion.

“He said, ‘I would buy a congressman’ and make, basically, the problems would go away at that point in time,” McCoy said. “That will stand in my mind for the rest of time. I’ve never had anybody say that to me directly, and I was aghast and basically, after that, I resigned from the company.”

Rush was also known for his temper and would become defensive when asked pointed questions, according to McCoy.

“That was also very concerning, that he may have not had the temperament to be doing this kind of work,” said McCoy.

In Friday morning’s testimony, McCoy revealed that OceanGate did not make plans to certify nor register the Titan submersible.

McCoy said he didn’t believe that the OceanGate had any professional engineers on their team, nor a safety officer. There was no formal system in place for investigating employee complaints or concerns, according to McCoy’s testimony.

Rush was killed on the Titan along with businessman Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.