Almost one year after the OceanGate Titan submersible tragically imploded and killed five people during an exhibition to view the wreck of the Titanic, an Ohio-based billionaire wants to do it all again to — get this — prove that deep sea travel is actually safe!!!!!!
Real estate investor Larry Connor told The Wall Street Journal that he intends to head on a journey in his two-person Triton 4000/2 Abyssall Explorer with Patrick Lahey, the co-founder and President of Triton Submarines. Connor reportedly reached out to Lahey mere days after the implosion with the interest of recreating the dive.
“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,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
According to Triton, the vessel is reportedly capable of withstanding dives as deep as 4,000 metres. The journey to the Titanic wreckage is just under 3,800 so there’s a little bit of wiggle room for the two explorers. Nice!!!
It’s not the first time Connor has sought out thrill-seeking adventures. Previously, the 74-year-old billionaire has travelled to the Mariana Trench which lies 10,935 metres below sea level, skydiver out of a balloon from a record-breaking 11,624 metres and even dabbled in space travel by being one of the first people to visit the International Space Station by private mission in 2022. So, I’m not saying old mate has a death wish, but he’s not exactly delaying things, either.
While Connor is a big fan of experiences that get his heart pumping, it still feels a bit fkn ballsy to be essentially recreating a journey which resulted in the death of five unsuspecting people in 2023.
The OceanGate submersible made headlines after it began its descent on June 18 and lost contact with the surface about an hour and 45 minutes later. Although there was a lot of mystery surrounding the state of the submersible and its passengers at the time, the US Coast Guard later concluded that the incident was a “catastrophic implosion” after finding likely human remains amongst the wreckage.
The five passengers who died in the tragic implosion were OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood, 19-year-old Suleman Dawood, billionaire Hamish Harding and pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
