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everything to be out of U.S. jurisdiction" for its Titanic pursuits, the former senior Ocean Gate employee told me. "It was deliberate." In a legal filing, the company reported that the submersible was "being developed and assembled in Washington, but will be owned by a Bahamian entity, will be registered in the Bahamas and will operate exclusively outside the territorial waters of the United States. Although it is illegal to transport passengers in an unclassed, experimental submersible, "under U.S. regulations, you can kill crew," McCallum told me. "You do get in a little bit of trouble, in the eyes of the law. But, if you kill a passenger, you're in big trouble. And so everyone was classified as a 'mission specialist. There were no passengers--the word passenger was never used." No one bought tickets; they contributed an amount of money set by Rush to one of OceanGate's entities, to fund their own missions