28 June 2024 , 15:26
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A billionaire planning another submersible dive to the Titanic wreckage is determined to prove the industry is "safe", according to a maritime expert.
Property tycoon Larry Conner, from Ohio, is in the process of building a £15 million two-person submersible to travel 12,400ft to the bottom of the North Atlantic to prove the industry is safe following the implosion of OceanGate's sub. The submarine suffered a catastrophic implosion around an hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the Titanic wreck site last summer, with June 18 marking the first anniversary of the devastating incident.
It led to the deaths of OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, British adventurer Hamish Harding, French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. OceanGate, which charged £195,000 to visit the wreckage, suspended all its operations pending an investigation, with the findings due shortly.
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It costs a whopping £15million (Triton Submarines)However, eyebrows were raised when Mr Conner declared he was planning on taking a sub to the Titanic wreckage just a year after the Titan suffered a catastrophic implosion killing all five members on board. Rob McCallum, who has led expeditions to the Titanic, believes Larry will aim to prove the maritime industry is safe - with the Titan explosion "an outlier."
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He told The Mirror: "Larry has dived to Challenger Deep and Sirena Deep….the two deepest places in the Mariana Trench. He appreciates the value of submersibles as science platforms and he understands the level of engineering and quality control that goes into building a classed submersible.
"In the wake of the Titan disaster he wanted to demonstrate that there is demonstrated way of building safe and efficient submersibles capable of diving at any depth."
The design is by Triton Submarines (Triton Submarines)Mr Harding and Mr Nargeolet were members of The Explorers Club, a professional society dedicated to research, exploration and resource conservation. Industry friends believe they would want expeditions to the deep sea to continue - and not for the Titan implosion to curtail future endeavours.
“Then, as now, it hit us on a personal level very deeply,” the group’s president, Richard Garriott, said in an interview. “We knew not only all the people involved, but even all the previous divers, support teams, people working on all these vessels — those were all either members of this club or well within our network.”
Mr Garriott believes the world is in a new golden age of exploration thanks to technological advances that have opened frontiers and provided new tools to more thoroughly study already visited places. The Titanic tragedy hasn’t tarnished that, he said.
Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titan (AP)The Titan implosion reinforced the importance of following industry standards and performing rigorous testing, but in the industry as a whole, “the safety track record for this has been very good for several decades,” said Veteran deep-sea explorer Katy Croff Bell, president of Ocean Discovery League, a nonprofit organisation focused on making deep-sea investigation less expensive and more accessible.
Mr Garriott said: "Progress continues,” adding: “I actually feel very comfortable and confident that we will now be able to proceed.”