Stockton Rush shows CBS reporter David Pogue one of the off-the-shelf components in the submersible. Photo / via CBS
Stockton Rush shows CBS reporter David Pogue one of the off-the-shelf components in the submersible. Photo / via CBS
As an international search continues for a vessel that disappeared after setting out for the Titanic wreck, footage from last year shows what conditions are like on the submersible.
CBS reporter David Pogue boarded the Titan for a news story that aired in November. During the item, he spoke to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who is among the five missing passengers on the voyage to tour the wreckage of the Titanic.
Pogue described parts of the vessel as “less sophisticated” than he expected.
“You drive it with a PlayStation video controller. Some of the ballasts are old, rusty construction pipes,” Pogue told USA Today on Tuesday. “There were certain things that looked like cut corners.”
The submarine lost on a dive to the Titanic used a $50 games controller for navigation. Photo / AP
During the segment, he describes how the submersible has “as much room as a minivan” and is shown a plastic bottle by Rush that is used as a toilet while submerged.
Rush argued that some of the basic features of the vessel were designed to be easily replaced.
The Titan was on its way to view the Titanic. Photo / Atlantic Productions, Magellan
Gesturing to a green button in the submersible, Rush says: “We only have one button and that’s it. It should be like an elevator.”
In the interview, Rush told Pogue that important components of the submersible such as the pressure vessel were engineered alongside Nasa, Boeing and the University of Washington.
Stockton Rush shows CBS reporter David Pogue one of the off-the-shelf components in the submersible. Photo / via CBS
“Everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go, and you’re still going to be safe.”
Rush added: “This is adventure travel. This is for adrenaline-seekers, people who live on the edge.”
And the actual trip in the vessel wasn’t without its dramas. The Titan got “lost” for a few hours during the trip and couldn’t find the wreckage of the Titanic, but the submersible never lost communication with crews on the surface.
Arthur Loibl, a former passenger on the Titan, showing a photo of the Titanic. Photo / Getty Images
‘Kamikaze operation’
Meanwhile, a man who was one of the submersible company’s first customers characterised a dive he made to the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation”.
“You have to be a little bit crazy to do this sort of thing,” said Arthur Loibl, 61, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany.
Loibl told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he had the idea of seeing the Titanic while on a trip to the South Pole in 2016. At the time, a Russian company was offering dives for half a million dollars.
The submersible Titan is prepared for a dive into a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean on an expedition to the Titanic on Sunday. Photo / AP
After Washington state-based OceanGate announced its own operation a year later, he paid US$110,000 ($178,000) for a dive in 2019 that fell through when the first submersible didn’t survive testing.
Two years later he went on a voyage with OceanGate CEO Rush, French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet and two men from England.
“Imagine a metal tube a few metres long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” Loibl said. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”
During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.
The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours.
The group enjoyed an amazing view of the wreck, Loibl said, unlike visitors on other dives who only got to see a field of debris or in some cases nothing at all. Some customers lost nonrefundable payments after bad weather made descent impossible.
He described Rush as a tinkerer who tried to make do with what was available to carry out the dives, but in hindsight, he said, “it was a bit dubious”.
”I was a bit naive, looking back now,” Loibl said. “It was a kamikaze operation.”
The OceanGate submersible carrying Rush, Nargeolet, a British adventurer and two members of a Pakistani business family disappeared on Sunday after setting out for the wreckage of the famed ship, which struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2200 passengers and crew.
Newly uncovered allegations suggest that significant safety warnings were made during the development of the submersible.
The US Coast Guard has been leading the search. Aircraft detected underwater noises Tuesday and Wednesday, but officials were not sure what caused them.
