OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush Added to Wikipedia List of Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions

Stockton Rush has been placed on Wikipedia's list of inventors that were killed by their own inventions.

Rush, 61, is remembered on the list as a "pilot, engineer, and businessman who oversaw the design and construction of the OceanGate submersible Titan, intended to take tourists to view the wreck of the Titanic."

His placement on the list lies after that of Thomas Andrews, who was the reported naval architect in charge of the plans for the Titanic, who died on board. His body was reportedly never recovered.

The OceanGate CEO was one of five passengers who died on the Titan submersible after it went missing on June 18 while on the company's Titanic expedition to the historic underwater site.

Rush was accompanied on the excursion by Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, British businessman Hamish Harding, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

U.S. Coast Guard officials announced in a press conference on Thursday that all five passengers were presumed dead after a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) from the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic found pieces of the missing sub near the Titanic.

Nargeolet's friend, Fred Hagen, shared with PEOPLE that Rush created the Titan “in order to explore the deepest depths” of the ocean and that "he wanted to democratize the sea and open it up to individuals.” 

The Titanic-bound excursions began in 2021 with a total of 18 dives planned starting this summer. 

In a previous interview with Princeton University, Rush shared that his passion for the Titanic was based on a "wealth of information waiting to be discovered."

"There's not a lot of data on how these ships decay," he said. "There are thousands of shipwrecks worldwide that sank with over 500,000 gallons of toxic substances, typically fuel oil." Speaking about OceanGate's expedition, he shared that "part of what we do is get people to appreciate that most of human history is underwater."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

"If you think about it from an archeological perspective, if you had a caravan of precious items — records, books, gold, or whatever — and you were snowed in on the passes of Mongolia, all that stuff got stolen, pillaged. If you were in a ship carrying King Herod's possessions to Rome and you sank, [it's] still there," he said.

The Wikipedia list also includes Cowper Phipps Coles, a Royal Navy captain who reportedly drowned in the sinking of HMS Captain, a masted turret ship of his own design, and German American inventor Julius H. Kroehl, who is thought to have died from decompression sickness after experimental dives with a Sub Marine Explorer he reportedly constructed and co-designed.