OceanGate received $450K in pandemic PPP loans to cover payroll costs

OceanGate, the deep-sea exploration company that operated the Titan submersible, received $447,000 in government loans throughout the pandemic under the Paycheck Protection Program, according to federal loan tracker ProPublica.

The PPP is a Small Business Administration-backed program that assisted companies from April 2020 through May 2021 by issuing checks so they could afford payroll costs, including benefits, for up to eight weeks.

Funds were also allowed to be spent on interest incurred from mortgages, rent and utilities.

The full amount of OceanGate’s loan was forgiven under the terms of the program, which was available to small US-based businesses with less than 500 employees that met certain criteria, ProPublica’s records show.

OceanGate had a reported 22 employees at the time.

However, OceanGate’s LinkedIn page says it has 48 staffers that are on the social media site, though the company’s description says it could have up to 50.

One of those employees was the exploration company’s co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush, who was killed in what the Coast Guard called a “catastrophic implosion” amid a journey to the Titanic shipwreck aboard OceanGate’s submersible, Titan.

Rush founded OceanGate in Everett, Wash., in 2009 alongside Argentine-born American social entrepreneur Guillermo Söhnlein, who has since left his top position at the company.

He remains a minority stakeholder in OceanGate.

It’s unclear how Rush and Söhnlein, though they both are graduates of the University of California, Berkeley.

Rush, 61, was on board the ill-fated Titan alongside passengers Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, British adventurer Hamish Harding, and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet. 

In October 2020, Rush told Geekwire that the company had spent much of the COVID lockdown creating a new hull for the Titan after tests in deep waters raised concerns that it wasn’t sturdy enough for repeated cycles of pressurization.

The tests were all in preparation for the doomed journey 12,500 feet underwater to the Titanic that set sail from a port in St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada, last Friday.

Tickets to the once-in-a-lifetime experience ran passengers $250,000 each.

It was unclear how much money it took to build Titan, though Rush in January 2020 said he raised $18.1 million in investments to expand his fleet of five-person submersibles, according to Geekwire.

According to financial database Pitchbook, OceanGate — which is listed as having 47 employees — raised almost $37 million in total funding since its inception.

Polar Prince, the Canadian support ship which monitored the Titan, lost contact with the submersible about an hour and 45 minutes later after it arrived at the wreckage site of the Titanic on Sunday.

The submersible’s last known position was near the Titanic, whose remains lie some 370 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coast.

It was revealed on Thursday that debris from the 22-foot-long vessel was found on the ocean floor 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.

The discovery suggests the sub suffered a “catastrophic implosion” that instantly killed everyone aboard, US Coast Guard officials said.