Almost a year after the Titan sub implosion, an Ohio real estate investor intends to prove that the expedition can be completed safely by sending a two-person submersible down to Titanic-level depths. Billionaire Larry Connor said he and Triton Submarines co-founder Patrick Lahey will travel more than 12,400 feet to the Titanic shipwreck site in the submersible, as per a report in the New York Post.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the investor Larry Connor said, "I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way."
Mr Connor has designed a Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, a $20 million vessel, which will carry out the voyage. It has been named "4000" for the depth in meters it can reach. "Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade. But we didn't have the materials and technology. You couldn't have built this sub five years ago," he added.
Triton Submarines co-founder Patrick Lahey told WSJ that Mr Connor called him a few days after the Titan sub implosion and said that need to build a sub that could dive safely. "You know, what we need to do is build a sub that can dive to (Titanic-level depths) repeatedly and safely and demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that, and that Titan was a contraption," Mr Lahey told about the billionaire. However, the real estate investor has not mentioned any specific date or timeline.
Mr Lahey was among the numerous industry critics who attacked OceanGate before and following the catastrophe, accusing it of questionable safety standards. Following the implosion, he called OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush's strategy for getting people on board "quite predatory."
Notably, the passengers on Titan had to sign a waiver that classified the ship as "experimental" three times and listed numerous ways in which they could die, as per a report in Business Insider. Errors, unsuccessful travel, and a sense of insecurity were also mentioned by previous travellers.
British explorer Hamish Harding, French submarine expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani-British tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman and Stockton Rush, died in the tragic accident. OceanGate has since then stopped these expeditions.
Experts recovered presumed human remains from what was left of the Titan sub after almost five days. Mangled debris recovered from the small submersible was offloaded in eastern Canada, which brought to an end a difficult search-and-recovery operation. A debris field was also found on the seafloor, 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, which sits more than two miles below the ocean's surface and 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
