Las Vegas businessman Jay Bloom turned down a last-minute Titanic dive in the Titanic bathyscaphe, even though he was offered nearly half-price tickets. He spoke about it on Facebook*, posting screenshots of correspondence with the head of operating company OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush, who personally piloted the device during the June 18 descent and died when destroyed with the rest of the crew and passengers. .
According to the correspondence, which lasted from February to May 2023, Bloom wanted to purchase Titan Expedition tickets for himself and his son Sean. But the son was worried about the possible risks – in particular, he learned from a friend that the bathyscaphe could collapse following an attack by a sperm whale or a giant squid.
In response to doubts about safety, Rush assured that “it’s nonsense”, and that at depth with such pressure, no sperm whales and squids will attack. He said that in 35 years of diving on “non-military” submersibles, there was not even a single case of injury.
“Although there is of course a risk, this (the descent into a bathyscaphe) is much safer than flying in a helicopter and even scuba diving (snorkeling using a special breathing apparatus. – About Russian media),” Rush wrote. He offered to personally address his son’s concerns via video link.
In April, Rush made a last-minute offer to Bloom: buy tickets at $150,000 per person instead of the regular price of $250,000, a 40% discount ($100,000). Despite the insistence of the organizer, the financier postponed the decision and finally refused, citing the job.
Those two seats in the bathyscaphe were eventually occupied by Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleiman, Bloom wrote, lamenting the death of the entire crew, including Stockton Rush. “He was absolutely convinced that this (diving) is safer than crossing the street,” the financier said.
What happened to the bathyscaphe
Bathyscaphe “Titan” from OceanGate Expeditions made another expedition to the wreck of the Titanic which sank in 1912, which lies on the bottom of the Atlantic at a depth of about 3.8 km, about 650 km to the southeast of the island of Newfoundland. According to the Wall Street Journal, during the dive, it was planned to take DNA samples near the wreckage of the ship. On the morning of June 18, communication with the aircraft was lost and it disappeared from radar.
On June 22, the US Coast Guard announced that wreckage had been found in the search area for the bathyscaphe. According to them, she determined that the device had been destroyed by a “catastrophic explosion” directed inwards. On the same day, OceanGate announced that its crew had been pronounced dead. In the bathyscaphe were British billionaire businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleiman, French explorer Paul-Henri Narjolet and OceanGate founder Stockton Rush.
According to Reuters, the owners could hide the unreliability of the bathyscaphe since 2018.
Eileen Maria Marty, professor at Florida International University said CNN that the destruction of the submersible’s hull happened “incredibly fast”, in just a fraction of a millisecond.
“All of this probably happened before the people inside even realized there was a problem. In the end, it (was) painless,” she says.
Blair Thornton, a professor at the University of Southampton, compared the pressure the Titan suffered during the destruction to the fall of the Eiffel Tower on a bathyscaphe.
According to Roderick Smith, professor at Imperial College London, one can try to understand the reasons for what happened to the underwater vehicle if fragments of carbon fiber bathyscaphe are found. “Carbon fiber decomposes under the influence of internal structural defects. The joints between carbon fiber and titanium require very in-depth study,” he explained.
The scientist noted that the “explosion” could be so strong that “it can be very difficult to establish the sequence of events”.
*belongs to Meta, which is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia
Read the Latest Ukraine War News on The Eastern Herald.
