OceanGate May Have Misrepresented Itself

OceanGate was a startup that hoped to attract a bigger and bigger base of high-paying customers as the years accumulated. But to do that, it had to be seen as a company that was both safe and well established. New reporting from Vice News suggests that OceanGate repeatedly misrepresented itself to clients in some of its promotional materials. In some instances, it claimed to have close affiliations with certain organizations that have since said they did not play an active role in the company’s affairs. The outlet writes:

Part of the image of bleeding-edge technological innovation and safety that OceanGate sought to project in its videos was based on much- and oft-touted collaborations with Boeing, NASA, and the University of Washington. These institutions have in fact had relationships with OceanGate, but none appear to have been quite as substantial as OceanGate—which declined to comment beyond a statement saying its current focus is on the well-being of the Titan’s crew—has claimed. While the company’s website said Titan was “designed and engineered by OceanGate Inc. in collaboration [with] experts from NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington,” for example, the head of UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory told Motherboard in a statement that it “was not involved in the design, engineering or testing of the TITAN submersible used in the RMS TITANIC expedition.”

In another instance, OceanGate seems to have characterized its affiliation with University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) differently than APL has characterized it. The outlet writes:

OceanGate has made much of its partnership with APL. Rush described it as “effectively our engineering partner,” and its website lists experts from APL, Boeing, and NASA as the company’s collaborators in the design and engineering of Titan…APL describes the relationship somewhat differently than OceanGate does… [APL wrote to Vice that] “the Laboratory was not involved in the design, engineering or testing of the TITAN submersible used in the RMS TITANIC expedition.”

At the same time, Vice shows the company perpetually emphasized how safe its trips into the deep were—despite ongoing industry concerns to the contrary.

Promotional materials posted on YouTube by OceanGate emphasize to potential customers how safe the dives down to the Titanic supposedly are…A testimonial in the ad features Chelsea Kellogg, OceanGate’s master chef, describing how safe diving in the company’s submersible is. “Not one second of me experiencing anything from OceanGate have I ever felt unsafe,” she said.

As we’ll see, however, numerous safety concerns existed about the nature of OceanGate’s business.