Titan Submersible: Past passengers remember the ill-fated Titan: ‘I 100% knew this was going to happen’

Mike Reiss, a writer for the television show “The Simpsons,” said he had positive experiences with the dives he made with OceanGate, including the wreck of the Titanic.

Titan Tragedy: Talk to anyone who has ridden the Titan submarine and they’ll likely mention a technological glitch: the propulsion system has failed or communication with people on the surface has been lost. Perhaps there were weight balancing issues on board.

They will also likely mention Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions who died this week during the fatal voyage. He has been described by previous passengers as both a meticulous planner and an overconfident trailblazer.

In the aftermath of the Titan’s fatal implosion near the Titanic shipwreck on Sunday, some people who embarked on the company’s deep-sea expeditions described experiences that foreshadowed the tragedy and look back on their decision to dive as “a bit naive “.

But others expressed confidence, saying they felt they were “in good hands,” nearly 12,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.

‘LIKE PLAYING RUSSIAN ROULETTE’

“I knew 100 percent that this was going to happen,” said Brian Weed, a cameraman for the Discovery Channel show “Expedition Unknown,” who has been feeling sick since the submarine’s disappearance on Sunday.

Weed made a Titan test dive in Washington State’s Puget Sound in May 2021 as it prepared for its first expeditions to the sunken Titanic. Weed and his colleagues were preparing to join OceanGate Expeditions to film the famous shipwreck later that summer.

They soon ran into problems: the propulsion system stopped working. The computers did not respond. Communication closed.

Rush, OceanGate’s CEO, tried to reboot the ship and troubleshoot the touch screens.

“You could tell he was confused and not really happy with the performance,” Weed said. “But he tried to be lighthearted about it, to make excuses.”

They were barely 100 feet in calm water, which begged the question, “How does this thing go to 12,500 feet—and do we want to be on board?” said weed.

After the aborted voyage, the production company hired a US Navy consultant to examine the Titan.

He delivered a mostly favorable report, but cautioned that there wasn’t enough research on the Titan’s carbon fiber hull, Weed said. There was also a technical concern that the hull would not maintain its effectiveness over the course of multiple dives.

Weed said Rush was a charismatic salesman who truly believed in the submarine’s technology – and was willing to risk his life for it.

“It looked more and more like we wouldn’t be the first to film the Titanic — we might be the 10th,” Weed said of the possible Titan expedition. “I had a feeling that every time (the ship) goes down, it will get weaker and weaker. And that is a bit like playing Russian roulette.”

For work projects, Weed has swum with sharks, descended into remote caves, and snowballed across Siberia. But he and his colleagues withdrew from the dive to the Titanic.

“I didn’t feel good about it,” he said. “It was a really hard choice to make.”

‘I ALWAYS FEEL I WAS IN GOOD HANDS’

Mike Reiss, a writer for the television show “The Simpsons,” said he had positive experiences with the dives he made with OceanGate, including the wreck of the Titanic.

“When my wife first came to me with this[idea]I said to her, ‘Well, this sounds like a fun way to get killed,'” Reiss said. “I knew (the risks) going in there. I always felt I was in good hands.”

Reiss said he’s made three trips with OceanGate in waters near New York City — and that the company takes safety seriously.

“It was especially breathtaking how well it all went,” Reiss said of his dive to the Titanic in 2022. “It’s a 10-hour journey. And I went from sea level down two and a half miles, and then back down to sea level. And at no time did the pressure in my ears change. I didn’t get the same feeling as in the elevator in New York. For me, that is a remarkable achievement.”

Reiss said he was in a “different state of mind” during the expedition because he was so engaged.

“You’re never hungry. You are never thirsty. They have a bathroom on board. It’s never been used,” he says. “You just become a different kind of person. You even know you could die and you don’t care.”

Reiss said he noticed some issues with the Titan, though he wasn’t sure everything was a glitch.

For example, communication did not always work, such as a cell phone failure. The Titan’s compass also began to “act frantically” as they got to the sunken Titanic on the ocean floor.

“I don’t know if that’s an equipment malfunction or because the magnetism is different two and a half miles away,” he said.

‘THE FATAL FLAW IS WHERE HE WILL BE REMEMBERED’

Arnie Weissmann, editor-in-chief of Travel Weekly, never drove the Titan, despite spending a week aboard the support ship at the end of May, waiting for the weather to clear. He briefly climbed into the submarine, but the dive was eventually canceled.

Wind, fog and waves were the reasons given, but Weissmann wondered if the submarine’s readiness was also a factor.

While sipping cigars one night, Rush told Weissmann that he had gotten the carbon fiber for the Titan’s hull at a deep discount because it was past its sell-by date for use on airplanes, Weissmann said. But Rush assured him it was safe.

“I really felt like there were two Stockton Rushes,” said Weissman. “There was one who was a good team leader and was efficient and got the job done. And there was this cocky, self-confident, other damn, ‘I’m going to do it my way’ kind of guy. And that’s the one I saw when we got off the back of the boat and drank our cigars.”

But he was also a strong leader, said Weissmann, who recalled Rush leading long planning meetings and urging anyone interested to read a book called “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right,” which he kept in the ship’s lounge. left behind. If a repair was complex, Weissmann said Rush would tell those assigned to it to pause for five minutes upon completion to make sure it was done correctly.

Looking back, Weissmann believes Rush had a fatal flaw: an overconfidence in his technical skills and the perception that he was a pioneer in a field that others were not because they played by the rules.

“But in the end it will certainly be the fatal flaw for which he will be remembered — even though he was a three-dimensional human being like everyone else,” Weissmann said.

‘I WAS A LITTLE NAIVE’

Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany, was one of OceanGate’s first customers to dive for the sunken ocean liner.

“You have to be a little crazy to do this sort of thing,” he said.

His diving buddies included Rush, French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and two passengers from England.

“Imagine a metal pipe a few meters long with a metal plate as a floor. You can’t stand. You cannot kneel. Everyone is close or on top of each other,” Loibl said. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”

During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were off to save energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.

The dive was repeatedly delayed to resolve a problem with the battery and balancing weights. The journey took 10.5 hours in total.

He described Rush as a tinkerer who tried to make do with what was available to perform the dives, but said in retrospect, “it was a bit iffy.”

“I was a little naive looking back now,” said Loibl.