A friend of two deceased Titan passengers has spoken out and made a series of chilling revelations.

Victor Vescovo is an ocean explorer and a friend of British billionaire Hamish Harding and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet who is grieving the loss of his colleagues after they died in the OceanGate submersible when the vessel imploded on Sunday.

Vescovo now says he warned his friends about the dangers of the trip to the Titanic wreckage when they asked him for his opinion on the matter.

“I wouldn’t get in that sub,” he allegedly told them.

Speaking to Sky News, the explorer recalled his last chat with Harding and Nargeolet saying:

“There was a common point of discussion within the community about the design risks of the submersible that they were going on. We all in the community had concerns and unfortunately those turned out to be true.”

Vescovo also took the opportunity to hit at the OceanGate team and accuse them of pushing the boundaries of safety too far.

As he explained, most operators in the industry “adhered to extremely strict safety protocols and standards and testing and we religiously follow.” OceanGate, however, not only refused to get the sub classed but also dismissed concerns raised by other professionals in the industry.

“But this was a different submersible and a different team and I think they thought they were advancing the state of the art and doing some interesting things, but I think they pushed the boundaries of safety too far and that’s been evidenced by what happened,” Vescovo added.

The news comes shortly after BBC shared an exchange between OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and deep-sea expeditions expert Rob McCallum.

In the emails, McCallum urged Rush to stop “placing yourself and your clients in a dangerous dynamic” and to suspend deep dive operations until Titan was classed and properly tested.

“I implore you to take every care in your testing and sea trials and to be very, very conservative. As much as I appreciate entrepreneurship and innovation, you are potentially putting an entire industry at risk,” he said.

Responding to McCallum, Rush said he took his safety concerns as a “serious personal insult” while insisting he is “well qualified to understand the risks and issues associated with subsea exploration in a new vehicle.”

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