Billionaire explains why he's planning voyage to Titanic site nearly year after submersible implosion
Nearly a year after five people died aboard the OceanGate "Titan" submersible while on a deep-sea voyage to the site of the Titanic, a billionaire has announced plans to go to the infamous wreck.
Entrepreneur and real estate investor Larry Connor said this week that he and Triton Submarines CEO Patrick Lahey are planning their own deep-sea expedition in a submersible.
Asked why, Connor told "Good Morning America" correspondent Will Reeve that the purpose of the voyage is to "demonstrate safety" of certified submersibles.
"If you look at submersibles that have been DNV certified ... there's never been an accident," he said. "The OceanGate vessel was not certified and never would have been."
While on a tour of the Titanic wreckage off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, in June 2023, the OceanGate submersible imploded underwater, killing all five people on board, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. Following a dayslong search, the remnants of the missing submersible were found on the ocean floor about 1,600 feet from the bow of the wrecked Titanic.
Experts called the carbon fiber construction of the Titan fundamentally flawed and a whistleblower who worked on a predecessor to the Titan vessel raised concerns about the inefficiency of the hull design. Rush had previously defended the decision to manufacture the submersible with carbon fiber, saying he believed it would have a better strength-to-buoyancy ratio than titanium. The exact cause of the implosion remains under investigation by federal authorities.
OceanGate, which suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion, could not be reached for comment.
Connor said he and Lahey are designing a new, safer and certified submersible, known as the Explorer, that could take two people to the Titanic site. The submersible will cost $13 million to $15 million and have an acrylic hull and offer a near-panoramic view.
Connor said he is "very confident" about the plan and would not do a dive if he was not "100% convinced" that the submersible was safe.
"The moment we don't meet one standard, the project is done," he said. "We will not compromise safety."
In addition to proving safety, he said continued deep-sea dives carry scientific benefits.
"Almost three-quarters of the earth is covered in water. Isn't doing research important and worthwhile, given that fact?" he said.
Hakeem Oluseyi, a physicist and ABC News contributor, said he doesn't think deep-sea submersibles "should be abandoned for a single accident."
"If you think about the early days of space travel, we lost an entire crew," he said. "But that tells us what we've done wrong in the past and how to get it right in the future."
