TITANIC SUB DIDN'T STAND A CHANCE!

Experts say flawed hull design doomed adventurers who got crushed like bugs

THE five people gruesomely crushed into the size of a can of corn by the implosion of the Titan submersible during a tour ride to the Titanic wreck two-and-a-half miles below the sea’s surface didn’t have to die!

That’s the shocking conclusion by experts who’ve called the tiny vessel an accident waiting to happen and questioned the durability of the Titan’s hull, which faced horrific pressures of up to 6,000 pounds per square inch during dives to the ocean liner’s watery grave.

In fact, some scientists branded the mini-sub defective from the get-go. Many of the vessel’s trips had to be canceled or cut short due to mechanical problems, and even the Titan’s creator, who died in the June 18 doomed dive, confessed he’d broken safety and science rules to build his dream sub.

Yet in spite of the criticism and problems, the OceanGate deep-sea exploration company plowed ahead with the dives.

Before the tragedy, Stockton Rush, the 61-year-old cofounder of OceanGate and creator of the sub, said he’d “like to be remembered as an innovator.”

Two years ago, the former commercial pilot with a degree in aerospace engineering actually bragged about turning a blind eye to the warnings of experts, saying: “I think it was General Douglas MacArthur who said, ‘You’re remembered for the rules you break.’ And I’ve broken some rules to make this.”