Karl Stanley and Idabel at their home on the dock at Half Moon Bay in the West End of Roatan, Honduras. (Contributed photo)
by Tawsha Brinkley-Davenport
It has been almost two years since OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded with its CEO and pilot Stockton Rush, along with four tourists off the coast of Newfoundland at a depth of 3,800 meters. It was found 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic wreck which sank in 1912.
Recently two documentaries have been released about the Titan disaster, one The Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster was released on Max and Discovery+ May 29 and Titan: The OceanGate Disaster was released on Netflix June 11. Both bring the disaster back into the spotlight once again.
Few people realize that the Titan tragedy has a surprising link to the Idabel area, that being Karl Stanley.
In 2003 Stanley found himself at the Idabel Airport constructing his own submersible. It was the second one he had made in his young life.
Why Idabel? How did his journey bring him here?
“Since I was nine years old, I wanted to build a submarine. I read a book about submarines, and I was fascinated by them from then on. Like any parents when I told them at the age of nine, they encouraged me. I was just gullible enough to do it. All I wanted to do was build a submarine,” said Stanley.
His first submersible was basically a long tube named Controlled Buoyancy Underwater Glider (CBUG). He built it in his parents’ backyard in Ridgewood, New Jersey. At the age of 15 his parents bought him welding supplies. He designed his ship and welded it himself. He took his CBUG with him to college at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida where he studied history. To date he has had no formal training in engineering.
“I just somehow understood how to design it on paper and the concept of creating it,” said Stanley.
His first submersible took its first trip as soon as he graduated from college.
He did many tests on it. Each time testing and pushing the depth it could go. First it dove to 70 feet. By the time he was taking passengers on it in 1998, the CBUG had dove to 700 feet. That is when he decided to begin his business.
He exhibited his craft at a dive convention in Florida where he met a gentleman named Andy Arcaya that owned the Inn of Last Resort in Roatan, Honduras.
“It was a chance meeting to have met Andy. He invited me to come there with my submersible. Just like that I went. I remained for two years. I began my first submersible passenger business. Andy believed the prospect of a sub ride for his guests would draw more tourists to the area and it did,” said Stanley.
At the age of 24 Stanley was known as a genius in his field, professional designer, submersible owner and pilot.
The CBUG could carry one passenger and one pilot (Stanley).
He has had scares with his submersibles. The CBUG window cracked three times; once it was stuck in a cave, stuck in some lobster traps and suffered from some small onboard fires.
“I always discussed the risks to all of my passengers and explained them,” said Stanley.
The CBUG made 550 trips.
One passenger from Idabel, Oklahoma was so impressed with his adventure on Stanley’s submersible he invited him to visit the town.
“Buck Hill, he owned a machine tool plant. He told me if I was ever interested in building another one to look him up and he could help,” said Stanley.
It was just another chance encounter.
Soon after Stanley took on a salvage contract in Cuba. He decided to leave Honduras for a while.
“It was for the Cuban government. I was really doing surveying. But we were also salvaging antiquities for the government. I had a government official with me on each trip. It was an interesting time. I enjoyed my time there. After that was over, I was dropped off in Florida. I do believe that was my water shed moment. I knew I wanted to do what I was doing in Honduras. I knew a needed a better machine. I knew that I needed one that could take more passengers down. It was like by only taking one, if there was a couple, the other one would be left behind on the beach. I wanted to take more passengers at one time so they could share the experience together,” said Stanley.
He drafted his new sub and took a break. Stanley went on a trip all across the west. He had never visited that part of the country before, living out of his car for over six months seeking out other submersibles engineers.
“The Navy did a lot of research on this topic in the 1960s, the engineers responsible for that research are now retired. I tracked them down, following up any leads they were able to offer me. I went up and down the west coast. I met a lot of submersible people, learned a lot. I met Stockton Rush during this trip along with other talented submersible builders,” said Stanley.
He shared with them his design for his new ship, and they consulted with him about it.
“When I was ready, I headed back toward Florida. There was a decommissioned submersible there in a museum. I bought a sphere from it and a window I disassembled from it. I took them both with me on my way to Idabel. I had decided to stop there and look up Buck Hill,” said Stanley
Stanley’s time in Idabel
He decided to take Hill up on his offer he had presented to him months before in Roatan. The year was now 2003. He had his new submersible all sketched as well.
“There I met other businessmen in the area along with other locals. Everyone in Idabel was so super supportive of me. I told Buck what I wanted to do, and he knew of a hangar at the airport that wasn’t being used.”
For Stanley he says, “Idabel was really just a wonderful spot.”
“It was economically perfect for me, the location and size of the area where I could build. Then the added bonus of having Broken Bow Lake right there to be able to test my new submersible.”
He set up a shop in a hangar at Idabel Airport with the help of Buck Hill. Stanley lived in that location in solitude working away on his submersible for over a year and a half.
“It was a great place, just perfect for me to build it. I blocked off a little place in the corner of the hangar. I had a big wood burning stove when it was really cold. I had a fan. I had an outdoor shower in the summertime and a shower inside for the winter. When it was really cold, there was a 1968 Buick Electra that I made it pretty comfortable to lay down in. It was very comfortable,” said Stanley.
He met a lot of people that he gives credit to helping him in his endeavor.
“I can’t even name them all; Craig Young, Gary at the Gary’s Industrial Machinery, Eugene with the Glass Specialists, a really nice man dealer of junk parts, Buck, so many. They were all so gracious to me,” said Stanley.
His new submersible was all custom-made from high pressure, high strength steel. It included parts from an airplane and even a classic car.
He named his new submersible Idabel to honor the town that aided him in her creation.
It is comprised of three spheres, the first submersible that has three spheres in an L shape. Two passengers can sit in the front while he pilots it standing up. It is 13 feet long, six and half feet wide and seven feet tall. For the passengers there is a 30-inch viewing window and nine views for the pilot of the ship.
“Some parts on it had to be made in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. I brought with me that one sphere and one glass of course from Florida,” said Stanley.
“I did all of my own welding and machining unless it was something intricate, then Gary’s Industrial Machinery in Valliant did those more critical tasks.”
When the submersible was finished it was time to test it.
Idabel was taken to Broken Bow Lake where she was tested over 60 times.
“The Broken Bow Lake was perfect to test Idabel in. The lake is 200 feet down. All I saw down there was a lot of knocked down trees. The visibility was bad and murky from what I remember. But it was a great place for testing of Idabel,” said Stanley.
Stanley bid farewell to all of his new friends he had met in Idabel and went back to Roatan and opened his new business in the Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration. Idabel docks at Half Moon Bay in the West End, Roatan. They have been there ever since.
Stanley has been featured in many magazines and on the Discovery Channel and other television programs for all of his accomplishments in designing submersibles.
But he enjoys his work at Roatan the most.
“Our season is usually December to May. It usually though isn’t totally black and white, tourist season is basically all year long,” said Stanley.
He will have an occasional visitor from Oklahoma, and he is always happy to see them, even a few have come to see him from McCurtain County.
“It’s nice to see familiar faces. The people in Idabel I will always remember, they were so friendly and supportive of my dream,” said Stanley.
He can take two to three passengers at a time. He has taken a family of six, a parent and five small children. The weight limit can only be 520 pounds. Idabel can reach a depth of 3,000 feet. He has made over 2,500 dives.
Stockton Rush and Titan
An interesting fact that many also do not know is Titan and Idabel in a way are “sister ships.” From that decommissioned ship in Florida where Stanley brought the sphere and window to Idabel. Stockton Rush also took two parts for Titan. The two referred to their ships as “sister ships.”
“I had known him for about 15 years. People have been wanting to make composite pressure dives for 50 years or more. It isn’t a new idea. Rush didn’t invent it. I have researched it,” said Stanley.
By composite pressure it means overwrapped pressure weighted and corrosion resistant alternative to traditional steel diving submersibles, instead of using a high strength composite like carbon fiber, as Rush used.
Stanley had met him in the past because of Stanley offering trips to the public which Rush now was wanting to do, to sell high price tickets for trips down to see the Titanic wreck.
“Since we were friends, I reached out to him, particularly when I heard he made submersible out of a carbon-fiber hull,” said Stanley.
Stanley was invited by Stockton Rush to come to the Bahamas to go on the 47th dive of the Titan for a test dive in April 2019. Stanley, along with Rush’s childhood friend and a CEO of OceanGate Joe Perry, Petros Mathioudakis and Rush as the pilot took Titan down for its 47th dive.
“At first, I was anxious when I saw it. I remember standing there about to board. When we first started descending it began making very loud noises collectively. All of us just looked at one another. Rush just said, ‘It’s just normal when descending.’ The sounds all came from one area. An area that was damaged. We went 12,000 feet, which was supposed to be 12,500. But we didn’t go as far as we were supposed to go. We decided to end the mission. The loud noises continued. It was loud when we got almost to the surface. That is not pressure acting on it. It probably saved our lives to end the mission. The day after a crack was found. Then it wasn’t until much later I found out that “crack” was in fact a 11-foot-long crack in the hull. Exactly where I told him he had a problem. OceanGate almost killed all of us then on the 47th dive of Titan. Making the decision to abort the mission saved our lives,” said Stanley.
That evening after the dive Stanley sat down and composed a series of emails to Stockton to express his concerns about the safety of Titan which he observed.
“I emailed him eight long emails, and he responded.”
One of the emails Stanley states, “We have a special connection running “sister subs.” He went on to say, “The sounds we observed yesterday do not seem consistent with glue joints breaking, or air cavities breaking. What we heard in my opinion sounded like a flaw/defect in one area being acted on by the tremendous pressures and being crushed/damaged. The facts there were sounds at 300 feet would indicate that there is an area of the hull that is breaking down/getting spongy.”
Stanley suggests to him to delay his work until a proper inspection is done. Then in an eerie premonition Stanley asks Rush to imagine worst case scenario B of pushing ahead without more inspections. Scenario A, being to do more testing before taking passengers on a voyage.
He suggested to Rush think about it in the future there will be a Russian television special tooling around a version of a wreck site telling their version of how things went wrong with the sub wreck.
“I hope you see option B as unacceptable as I do.”
Rush didn’t take any of Stanley’s suggestions. He brushed him off basically. He responded in one email, Rush says, “I requested that you keep your opinions to yourself because our analysis is ongoing. I hope you of all people will think twice before expressing opinions on subjects in which you are not fully versed.”
The two didn’t speak again.
“Going off the information that I had I thought he had done a lot of testing before I arrived in the Bahamas to test the Titan. Although he didn’t offer particularly a lot of details when I arrived. And now from my experience of it all I and the other two had. What happened of course in the end. I now know he lied to me, to everyone. OceanGate came very, very close to killing me and had a severe impact on my business as well as the entire industry,” said Stanley.
Stanley mentioned that after the dive, the childhood friend Jo Perry who went on the dive with Stanley, resigned from OceanGate and has never talked about his experiences or that day or the company since.
“The testing program he had, one was crazy, he did a fair amount of testing only, the bare minimum and he had no proof to believe it would survive a length of time. He knew a disaster was going to happen. He wanted the maximum of sensationalism. He was under enormous pressure from investors, people waiting to go and his own ego.”
“The Coast Guard Hearings came about because in the Navy’s 100-year history there had been less than ten people in the whole history coming close to imploding. There had been no civilian implosions so the Coast Guard wanted to understand what had happened exactly. Was it an accident or a crime?” said Stanley.
Stanley testified at the hearing and presented his expertise in what he knew about the subject, what he had experienced with Rush and Titan, and he produced the emails as part of the official record.
The Coast Guard hasn’t come to a decision as of yet.
“My hopes are, and a lot of other people hopes are to see the people at OceanGate get charged in negligence. They all knew about the tests all failing. They kept quiet and didn’t tell anyone and just kept going. People that stood by and did nothing. People that kept funding him should be held accountable. Not one of his employees went down in Titan to test it. It was all the others that were risking their lives. Those that had paid to be on the “crew.” The donors kept donating money. There was never a dive that was 100 percent,” said Stanley.
A portion of Stanley’s testimony before the Coast Guard is shown on the Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster which was released on Max and Discovery+.
For the Netflix documentary, it was directed by Mark Monroe who has ties to Idabel as well. He is a former native and his father used to work at this newspaper; Jim Monroe. It is entitled Titan: The OceanGate Disaster. It premiered on Netflix June 12. Stanley isn’t interviewed in it, but there is footage of him featured within it.
The future of submersibles
Stanley said submersibles are still being made of high strength steel or titanium.
“But more and more are being made out of an acrylic material, the hulls. In terms of material, it is good. It is 14 inches thick. It isn’t heavy. They have done all of the tests. They can go down 7,000 feet. They are pretty safe. They keep pushing it, but they are all tested and all of that,” said Stanley.
He said there are carbon fiber hull composite submersibles being produced currently in Rhode Island that can dive 6,000 meters, but not for humans, they are robotics.
“There is a niche market for big yachts today to have little subs on the back of their yachts,” said Stanley.
The industry continues to grow.
“I see more units being made and more advancements being made in history.”
Stanley’s Future
Stanley’s submersible company is just one of three that he knows of that gives tourists trips.
“There is one in the Canary Islands and one in Aruba Curacao and then there is Idabel and me in Roatan. Although I am the longest operating and most affordable business in all of the world to date. Tourists visit me from all over the world. They come for the experience. Seeing all of the different animals, ocean life, the octopus, sharks and more. In Roatan, it has the clearest beautiful blue water and hardly anything to get tangled up in. Just a beautiful place.”
Stanley has been called, “one of the most innovative and successful submersible inventors in the world.”
“My plans are to continue taking people on deep dives with Idabel and exploring the depths of the ocean and ocean life. It is a totally different world there. With proper maintenance a good submersible’s life is 60 years or more. Idabel and I have a lot of adventures to go on,” said Stanley.
