Guillermo Soehnlein, founder of OceanGate, responded to Titanic movie director James Cameron’s comments about the Titan submersible which imploded. His former business partner, pilot Stockton Rush, died along with four others.
Cameron accused OceanGate Expeditions of ignoring safety warnings after the US Coast Guard confirmed that they found parts of the submersible in the debris field, indicating the vessel had imploded. The company said that it believes the five members onboard had died.
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“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” OceanGate said in a statement on Thursday.
Cameron, who directed Titanic in 1997, told BBC that OceanGate ‘cut corners’ while building the Titanic submersible.
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“I was very suspect of the technology that they were using. I wouldn’t have gotten in that sub,” he said.
Cameron has completed 33 submersible dives to the Titanic wreckage site.
Soehnlein responded to Cameron’s comments.
“He was extremely committed to safety. He was also extremely diligent about managing risks, and was very keenly aware of the dangers of operating in a deep ocean environment,” he told Britain’s Times Radio, talking about Rush.
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“So that’s one of the main reasons I agreed to go into business with him in 2009.”
Who is Guillermo Soehnlein?
Guillermo Soehnlein founded OceanGate with Stockton Rush in 2009. He left the company in 2013.
Soehnlein added that Rush himself conducted many submersible descents.
“I think he was asked about a similar risk and he said, ‘look, if something happens at that depth, it will be catastrophic in a matter of microseconds’. To the point where the implosion happens at almost supersonic speeds and you’d basically be dead before your brain could even process that anything was wrong.”
Soehnlein is an Argentine-born American social entrepreneur. He is 57 years old.
The businessman was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 18, 1966. He emigrated to the United States in 1972 with his family. They settled in San Jose, California.
Soehnlein attended St. Francis High School in Mountain View. The 57-year-old graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with an A.B. in economics. He then earned a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
From 1995 to 1999, he served in the United States Marine Corps.
