Titan Sub Founder Stockton Rush Could Have Faced Manslaughter Charges: Investigator (Exclusive)

Jason Neubauer has been involved with hundreds of U.S. Coast Guard investigations involving marine accidents, tragedies and worse.

Still, the implosion of the Titan submersible in June 2023, which killed five people, stands out to him as unique for several reasons.

“I’ve never seen one where the vessel was never registered,” Neubauer, who is leading the USCG probe of the Titan disaster, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story.

The lack of registration (or “flagging”) with a country was one of the indicators that the sub, created by the Washington-based exploration company OceanGate, was seeking to skirt regulatory scrutiny and safety laws.

As Neubauer puts it, “the reason you would do it is to stay off the radar with your intentions.”

Similarly, OceanGate didn’t have the Titan “classed” — or certified by an outside body — and its paying passengers were listed as “mission specialists” on dives, which Neubauer calls a “mask” to get around the law. 

OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush had long been open about his dreams of building a novel kind of submersible to allow more people to reach deepwater artifacts like the wreck of the Titanic.

To that end, Titan’s hull was made of carbon fiber rather than titanium or steel and it was designed in a cylindrical shape, not a sphere. 

• For more on what really happened during the Titan sub implosion, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe.

Both of those decisions went against the prevailing understanding of the best way for submersibles to withstand immense pressure while traversing the ocean.

But for a time, Rush seemed to have been successful — even as internal warnings mounted that his sub would ultimately fail. Neubauer notes that the Titan’s own monitoring system documented how the hull was making increasing amounts of noise, indicating the material was being damaged. 

The sub was also left out in the Canadian winter, in a parking lot, even covered with snow, during the off-season.

Then while diving down to the Titanic two years ago, the Titan imploded while Rush was piloting. Four other people — Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet — were killed as well.

“It was incredible that the Titan made it to Titanic … many times. It really was technologically impressive that it was able to do that,” Neubauer says. “The problem is it just wasn’t doing it safely.”

The sub, says Neubauer, was “waiting to be an accident.”

Since the implosion, the Coast Guard has been conducting an extensive investigation — including a public hearing last year — and with what Neubauer calls “the most data” he’s ever seen collected for a probe like this.

A final report is expected soon, as early as this month.

One conclusion Neubauer feels comfortable making is that if Rush had survived, he could’ve faced charges for seaman’s manslaughter.

He says no one else at OceanGate was responsible, including Rush’s widow, Wendy, who worked at the company at the time and was on board a support ship monitoring the final, doomed dive. 

She has avoided the spotlight since the tragedy and Neubauer says Coast Guard officials didn’t interview her. 

“We felt like we could get the information we needed from other witnesses. And I’ve been in contact with her through her attorney,” he says, “but I haven’t been tracking where she is.” (PEOPLE has been unable to reach her for comment.)

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“I think we know the story,” Neubauer says. “We know what happened. We have some ideas how to prevent it from occurring again.”

In its own statement, OceanGate tells PEOPLE: “We again offer our deepest condolences to the families of those who died on June 18, 2023, and to all those impacted by the tragedy.”

“After the tragedy occurred, OceanGate permanently wound down its operations,” the now-defunct company says, “and focused its resources on fully cooperating with the investigations being.”