In a spooky coincidence, the OceanGate executive who was piloting the lost submersible on Sunday’s dive to see the Titanic wreckage is married to the descendent of a couple who died when the Titanic went down.
OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, who was piloting te doomed vessel, is married to Wendy Rush, the great-great-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus.
The Straus’ choose to remain onboard the sinking Titanic together so that others could escape to safety in their place. Their sacrifice was depicted in a key scene in James Cameron’s hit movie when an elderly couple embraces in bed as water rushes into their room.
Rush is OceanGate’s communications director. She is also a direct descendant of Minnie Weil, one of the Straus’ seven children.
Minnie married Richard Weil, Sr., and they had a son, Richard Jr.
His son, Richard Weil III, is Rush’s father.
The Coast Guard announced Thursday that an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) has found a “debris field” in the search for the missing OceanGate Titan submarine. The discovery was made after ROVs were scanning the Atlantic Ocean floor. The Coast Guard has scheduled a press conference for 3 p.m. ET in Boston, Massachusetts.
According to NPR:
The couple were traveling back from a winter in Europe aboard the Titanic when tragedy struck on the night of April 14, 1912. As the ship began sinking, women and children were ushered into lifeboats.
Ida, 63, was given a seat, and expected Isidor to follow. The officer in charge of that particular lifeboat recognized him and was willing to let him on board, Kurzman told TODAY in 2017.
“And, my great-grandfather said, ‘No. Until I see that every woman and child on board this ship is in a lifeboat, I will not enter into a lifeboat myself,’” said Kurzman, who grew up hearing the story from his grandmother, the Straus’ oldest daughter Sara.
Ida climbed back out of the lifeboat, took off her full-length mink coat (“I won’t have any further need”) and gave it to her maid, who was eventually rescued. (The maid later tried to return the coat to Straus’ children, but they refused.)
She chose to stay with her husband, a moment depicted decades later in a deleted scene from the movie.
“She basically said, ‘We have lived our whole life together and if you are going to remain on the boat and to die as the boat sinks, I will remain on the boat with you. We will not leave one another after our long and wonderful marriage together,” Kurzman said.
The wife of Stockton Rush, the pilot of the missing Titanic tour submarine, is actually the great-great-granddaughter of two first-class passengers who died on the Titanic, according to records.
A fictionalized version of the couple is even featured in the movie “Titanic” pic.twitter.com/Eg4begLgO4
— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) June 22, 2023
The wife of OceanGate’s CEO is descended from a famous couple who died on the Titanic https://t.co/6zqweLFtxP pic.twitter.com/Ounn7HHKUA
— WCMU Public Radio (@WCMUNews) June 22, 2023
