OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush sent his submersible down to the Titanic with a thruster facing the wrong way last year, and had to troubleshoot it on the fly

• OceanGate sent a submersible down to the ocean floor with a thruster facing the wrong way in 2022.
• The pilot noticed that the submersible was spinning in circles when he started the thrusters.
• Rush managed to troubleshoot the submersible, after telling the pilot to remap the controls. 

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush sent a submersible down to the Titanic shipwreck with a thruster pointed in the wrong direction in 2022 and had to troubleshoot the problem on the fly, per The New Yorker.

In a wide-ranging story published on Saturday, The New Yorker detailed the ill-fated submersible's development and the multiple safety warnings that Rush dismissed. 

According to The New Yorker, a documentary crew from BBC's "The Travel Show" joined OceanGate on an expedition to the Titanic shipwreck last year. Rush remained on board the surface vessel while his logistics director Scott Griffith piloted the submersible, per BBC News. Four other passengers, including banker Renata Rojas and businessman Oisin Fanning, were in the submersible during the dive.

A diver had noticed that the submersible's thruster "seemed off" during the submersible's launch, per The New Yorker. However, OceanGate still proceeded with the dive. 

Griffith only realized that something had gone wrong when the Titan landed on the ocean floor.  

"I don't know what's going on," Griffith told the other passengers when he noticed that the vessel was spinning in circles, per The New Yorker. 

"When I'm thrusting forwards, one of the thrusters is thrusting backwards," Griffith told Rush, per BBC News. "Now all I can do is a 360."

Rush later suggested to Griffith to remap the submersible's controller. 

"Yeah — left and right might be forward and back. Huh. I don't know. It might work," Rush told Griffith, per The New Yorker.

Rush's suggestion worked and Griffith was able to take the passengers to the bow of the sunken Titanic. But the setback ended up alarming some people on board. 

"I thought, we're not going to make it!" Rojas told BBC News. "We're 300 meters from Titanic and all we can do is go in circles." 

This was not the first time things had gone wrong during the Titan submersible's dives. In May 2021, a documentary cameraman who took a test dive in the Titan said Rush got "flustered" and tried to make excuses when its propulsion system failed and comms went out. 

The Titan submersible disappeared after a dive to the Titanic shipwreck on June 18. All five passengers on board the Titan, including Rush, were declared dead after the Coast Guard said on June 22 that the submersible had likely imploded.

A representative for OceanGate did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.