He took an OceanGate sub trip to the Titanic. Now he has ‘survivor’s guilt’

Bill Price had complete faith in Stockton Rush.

Even when Rush’s experimental submersible Titan lost communication with the mother ship about an hour into its descent toward the Titanic shipwreck on its maiden voyage in 2021.

Even when Price realized the vessel’s propulsion system was malfunctioning.

Even after he became aware there was an issue with the mechanism that releases weights off the craft so that it rises back to the surface.

“There was some apprehension of how are we going to get back up,” Price told The Times on Thursday.

Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate, which designed and operated the submersible, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French explorer known as “Mr. Titanic,” remained calm.

They came up with a solution to get the sub back to the ocean’s surface, Price said. Nargeolet and Rush urged Price and his fellow passengers to rock from side to side, swaying the sub to dislodge the weights that held it down. Slowly, they began to hear the sound of metal falling from the vessel.

“When we heard our first clunk, that was such a relief,” Price recalled.

The sub resurfaced, and despite the mishaps, Price felt confident in the craft and its operator. He and the other passengers all opted to join Rush and Nargeolet for another trip the following day.

Video taken by a passenger on the first trip Titan took to the Titanic shows Stockton Rush and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, two of the men who died this week when the submersible imploded in the Atlantic Ocean.

Rush and Nargeolet were two of the five occupants of Titan when it suddenly imploded near the site of the Titanic wreckage Sunday. The craft’s disappearance less than two hours into its latest voyage sparked a massive manhunt involving American, French, British and Canadian governments as planes, boats and submarines desperately scanned the North Atlantic for the lost submersible, fearing it was stuck underwater with a 96-hour supply of oxygen.

Price, a 71-year-old retiree from Manhattan Beach, worked in the travel business his whole career. He is not a billionaire. He was able to afford the trip on Titan, which costs around $250,000, by doing some marketing work for OceanGate and using money he received from the sale of a property. An explorer and a history buff, Price was delighted by the opportunity to see the Titanic up close.

“It was something I’ll never forget the rest of my life,” he said.

He recalls the wall of the side of the bow as they first approached in the dark depths, around 13,000 feet below the surface. Nargeolet pointed out the captain’s quarters where they could see the captain’s bathtub filled with debris. He remembers the decay of the wooden decks. He also remembers the poise of Rush maneuvering the vessel with a video-game controller, and Nargeolet’s encyclopedic knowledge as they traversed the resting place of the doomed ship.

Now, Price is struggling knowing what could have occurred on his trip, as well as grieving the loss of two men he respected deeply.

“I do have survivor’s guilt,” Price said.

Bill Price shown holding a Titan inaugural dive coin.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Price now carries a coin he was given, courtesy of OceanGate, after his dive down to the Titanic.

“Titan,” the coin reads. “A new era of exploration.”

“Inaugural Dive Coin,” it says.

At the top: “Respect, Honor, Remember.”

Price, along with some others who have worked with OceanGate, is hoping to reframe the narrative around Rush and the company. Some in the industry raised concerns about the safety of the Titan sub, which did not follow all of the protocols expected in the submersible industry.

Rush chafed at regulations, which he felt slowed innovation and made private enterprise in submersibles more costly.

“One of the jabs that gets thrown at us is: ‘Hey, you aren’t certified.’ But how can you do something new and get certified?” Rush said in a 2022 interview in Maptia. “If the rules exist for how to do it, then you are operating outside of the rules by doing something different. I think it was MacArthur who said, ‘You are remembered for the rules you break.’ We try to break the rules intelligently and intentionally.”

Still, Price felt that Rush, an aerospace engineer, was incredibly cautious and methodical.

“I certainly didn’t feel that Stockton was a daredevil — not even close. It was pretty much the opposite,” Price said. “Every evening after the dive everyone would get together in the briefing room and do a debriefing, and he was adamant that he doesn’t care, you can’t hurt his feelings, say whatever you want to say.”

Price trusted Rush with his life and said he still would, despite the fact that the Titan’s final dive ended in catastrophe.

“In terms of regret, I certainly don’t have any regrets. I do feel that maybe at the time I jumped into it without knowing everything,” he said.

It had not yet become a massive international story when Price heard from associates at OceanGate that the submersible was missing. Still, he knew something was wrong.

“The amount of time that had gone by, I think six or eight hours. Something should have happened by then,” he said.

Though Price hoped for a rescue, he thought it more likely that the submersible had imploded. Now that the 96 hours of oxygen that the sub have run out, he said he preferred knowing that the five occupants’ deaths were speedy and without suffering.

“It does give me solace, a limited amount, to know that they didn’t have to endure extreme anxiety and concerns over a period of time,” he said.