A former passenger of the missing Titanic submersible has revealed that he signed a waiver that mentioned ‘death’ three times.
The vessel called Titan had disappeared in the North Atlantic Ocean while it was on its way to explore the Titanic wreckage.
Five passengers were on board the sub which included British billionaire Hamish Harding, the vice chairman of the Pakistani energy manufacturing conglomerate Engro Corporation Shanzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman, founder and CEO of OceanGate Stockton Rush, and professional deep diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Mike Reiss, an Emmy Award-winning writer-producer for The Simpsons, told the New York Post that he was a former passenger of Titan and had descended 13,000ft to see the Titanic wreckage.
Recalling his experience, he said: “Before you even get on the boat, there’s a long, long waiver that mentions death three times on page one.”
He went on: “It’s like if you took a minivan and took all the seats out, that’s the amount of space you have. It’s sort of beautifully designed inside, it feels sort of like a waiting room at a spa, quiet and comfortable.
Reiss said that he managed to keep calm in the face of challenging conditions.
“The one scary element of the whole voyage is the idea that to go back up, they push a lever that releases these lead weights,” Reiss said. “And the weights fall off and then bob to the surface like a cork.”
He also said that if the lever failed, he had no idea what the next plan would be.
“You obviously can’t get out of the sub and do it manually,” he added.
David Pogue, a former OceanGate submersible attendee and a CBS journalist, also shared the preparation process from his experiences.
“This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death,” he expressed.
Pogue also told BBC News that even though the vessel had seven different ways of re-surfacing, it was ‘really concerning’ as none of the available options seemed to have worked yet.
He also said that he had second thoughts about going aboard Titan as some of the components appeared to be ‘off the shelf, sort of improvised.’
He added: “You steer this sub with an Xbox game controller, some of the ballast is abandoned construction pipes.”
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