While Titan’s owner Rush claimed NASA helped develop the carbon fiber fuselage, the agency has a different story

Stockton Rush, the co-founder of OceanGate and the CEO behind the ill-fated Titan submarine, claimed that the deep-diving vessel’s carbon fiber hull was developed with the help of NASA and aerospace manufacturers.

However, a NASA official said it had little involvement in the process.

A Boeing official also spoke out and said that the aerospace manufacturer’s recommendations had been ignored.

Justin Jackson, a materials engineer at NASA, said the agency intended to play a role in building and testing the carbon fiber fuselage, but the Covid-19 pandemic prevented it from fulfilling that role.

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Instead, NASA consulted with OceanGate on a one-third scale mockup of Titan, not the actual submarine that exploded with five people, including Rush, on board while descending into the Titanic wreck on June 18, 2023.

Jackson spoke to the Coast Guard’s Maritime Board of Inquiry (MBI) during a hearing Thursday about the relationship between NASA and OceanGate, saying NASA balked at allowing Rush’s company to use its name.

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“The language they used was too close to our support, so our parents had heartburn,” Jackson told MBI during the hearing. The hearing was part of an investigation into the cause of Titan’s implosion beneath the surface off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

Boeing was also reportedly involved early in the process in a feasibility study that looked at using carbon fiber in the Titan’s fuselage and in the ship’s OceanGate acoustic sensors.

Mark Negley, a materials and process engineer at Boeing, said OceanGate deviated from Boeing’s recommendations for fuselage thickness and the orientation of carbon fiber layers that would provide the greatest strength.

At the start of an MBI hearing earlier this month, Coast Guard officials said the ship was not independently inspected before going to the bottom of the sea as is standard practice.

The ship’s design has also come under scrutiny from members of the undersea exploration community.

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Coast Guard marine inspector John Winters testified Thursday that Rush opposed regulations that he argued stifled innovation, even though he never tried to circumvent any of the regulations established by the Coast Guard.

Winters told the panel that he knew of two other submarines used by OceanGate before learning that it had created a new ship that could go deeper to reach the Titanic.

He said he didn’t know whether the company notified the Coast Guard about Titan’s construction or whether it asked the Coast Guard for guidance.

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“We didn’t go into what standards it was built to or who built it. None of these issues were discussed,” Winters said. “It was just, ‘Hey, we have a submarine. Enough for 4000 meters. We now have a submarine that will do it.”

More witnesses are expected to testify during the hearing, which will last until Friday.

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The ongoing MBI investigation is the Coast Guard’s highest level of marine accident investigation.

Once completed, the recommendations will be forwarded to the Commandant of the Coast Guard.

The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating the case.

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano and the Associated Press contributed to this report.