At least five people narrowly avoided going on Titan’s doomed voyage due to twists of fate or deep concerns about the safety of the sub, MailOnline can reveal today.
Diver Chris Brown signed up with tragic pal Hamish Harding, 68, after a ‘few beers’ while holidaying on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island but later claimed scaffolding poles were used as ballast and the vessel was ‘shoddy’.
MailOnline has revealed that Vegas financier Jay Bloom and his son Sean also declined a voyage with his son Sean – even when they were offered a $100,000 discount off the $250,000 price by OceanGate CVEO Stockton Rush.
And another explorer, David Concannon, was slated to join the trip but was forced to cancel at the last minute due to a work meeting.
OceanGate also offered Robert Mester a voyage onboard the Titan’s predecessor Antipodes and later on Titan itself, but he says he turned it down after sighting its ‘off-the-shelf’ equipment.
Mr Mester said: ‘Quite frankly, I found something else to take that time up, rather than take the trip,’ he said. ‘[The Titan] has a carbon fiber hull, which, how do I put this… it’s not a material that’s ever been successfully used at great depths.’
Jay Bloom and his son Sean (pictured together) were close to going on the doomed Titan voyage to the Titanic – and were even offered a last-minute discount but decline over safety concerns
Chris Brown has spoken of his grief at the deaths of the five men – and said that he asked for his money back over saefty concerns
David Concannon was supposed to be on the dive but could not go due to another client matter at the 11th hour
OceanGate , the company that built the vessel, offered Robert Mester (pictured) a voyage onboard the Titan’s predecessor Antipodes and later on Titan itself, but he says he turned it down after sighting its ‘off-the-shelf’ equipment
Mr Brown, 61, of Harrogate, North Yorkshire paid his deposit for the £80,000 voyage to the wreck but later pulled out over safety fears including learning scaffolding poles were used as ballast.
He said today: ‘I am deeply saddened by the tragedy of the Titan. The world of exploration has lost some amazing individuals. And my thoughts are with the families of all the lost souls.’
Debris of their subversive was found by a robot sub at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after a ‘catastrophic failure.’
Oxygen on the sub also ran out yesterday and any hope of finding them alive ended.
Fellow Brits Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman, plus OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77, were also onboard.
Chris – who signed up in 2016 – claimed: ‘I found out they used old scaffolding poles for the sub’s ballast.
‘And its controls were based on computer game-style controllers. If you’re trying to build your own submarine you could probably use old scaffold poles.
‘But this was a commercial craft. Eventually I emailed them and said “I’m no longer able to go on this thing”. I asked for a refund after being less than convinced.’
Robert Mester, a former marine and deepwater salvage expert based in Washington State, said none of the equipment he saw inside was up to the task of reaching the wreck of the Titanic – which was where Titan was headed when it vanished on Sunday.
Titan imploded close to the Titanic’s wreck
After a desperate four-day search, it was announced Thursday that all five people aboard perished when the OceanGate craft suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ near the site of the iconic shipwreck, 12,500 feet below the surface.
Mester said he was put off taking a trip on the vessel himself after seeing the equipment used by OceanGate and the company’s CEO Stockton Rush, who is one of the five people killed in the disaster.
‘They were using off-the-shelf hardware from Radio Shack to operate inside, and quite frankly we’re talking about an environment that requires robust equipment that has certifications and qualifications that are established by different agencies for man-rated submersibles,’ Mester told the Daily Beast last night.
‘None of the equipment that I saw inside the [Antipodes] submersible was up to that [level], so I just chose not to go.’
He told the publication that he later boarded the Titan on dry land, and as with its predecessor, decided against going on a voyage into the depths.
‘Quite frankly, I found something else to take that time up, rather than take the trip,’ he said. ‘[The Titan] has a carbon fiber hull, which, how do I put this… it’s not a material that’s ever been successfully used at great depths.’
Previous reports about the Titan found much of the equipment inside the cabin was store-bought. Rush has spoken about how the lights, for example, were purchased from a camping shop.
Questions had also been raised about the strength of the hull made from a carbon-fiber composite, and the acrylic window mounted on the front.
Jay Bloom has shared texts between himself and OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush showing he and his son were offered a ‘last minute price’ of $150,000 a head (£120,000) – a discount on the usual $250,000 (£195,000) fee.
Mr Bloom, a Democrat supporter who has been photographed with Joe Biden, has described his sadness at Mr Rush’s death and his grief that Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19, had taken their spots and perished with French Navy veteran Paul-Henri Nargeolet and British billionaire Hamish Harding.
In a Facebook post he said: ‘I expressed safety concerns and Stockton told me: “While there’s obviously risk – it’s way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving”.
‘He was absolutely convinced that it was safer than crossing the street. I am sure he really believed what he was saying. But he was very wrong’.
Jay Bloom, pictured with Joe Biden, revealed he was first offered the seats on the Titan but had safety concerns
Mr Rush speaks to Mr Bloom about taking part in one of his firm’s trips to the Titanic wreck
Mr Bloom’s Facebook post showing his grief that Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19, had taken his and his own son’s places
Stockton Rush shows the controller used to steer the Titan – which has been compared to something from a XBox or PS5
In February this year Stockton Rush asked Mr Bloom and his son Sean to go on the dive to Titanic in May. Both May dives were postponed due to weather and the dive got delayed until June 18, the date of the ill-fated trip.
Mr Bloom said: ‘I told him that due to scheduling we couldn’t go until next year. Our seats went to Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, two of the other three who lost their lives on this excursion, the fifth being Hamish Harding.
‘RIP Stockton and crew. As for Sean and I… we are going to take a minute to stop and smell the roses. Tomorrow is never promised. Make the most of today’.
Texts between Mr Rush had repeatedly tried to reassure Mr Bloom about the safety of the Titan and heading to the Titanic’s wreck.
He said his son was very worried about the risks after speaking with a friend. Mr Rush said: ‘I’m happy to have a video call with him. Curious what the uninformed would say the danger is and whether it’s real or imagined’.
They discussed how the hull would deal with pressure, or even if it came into contact with a whale or squid.
Mr Rush said: ‘While there’s obviously risk it’s way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving, There hasn’t even been an injury in 35 years in non-military subs’.
David Concannon, was supposed to be on the dive but could not go due to another client matter.
Concannon said in a statement shared by Titanic Book Club: ‘As I posted last week I was supposed to be on this expedition and, indeed, on this dive, but I had to cancel to attend to another urgent client matter.
A satellite image shows ships taking part in the search and rescue operations associated with the missing Titan submersible near the wreck of the Titanic
OceanGate Expeditions were allegedly repeatedly warned about safety concerns
Five people were onboard, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19
French Navy veteran Paul-Henri Nargeolet (left) and Mr Rush (right), CEO of OceanGate Expeditions
Titanic director and submersible expert James Cameron said he predicted Titan’s implosion days before the debris from the missing submersible was found, calling the search a ‘prolonged nightmarish charade’.
Mr Cameron, who has visited the world’s most famous seawreck 30 times, said the tragedy this week has parallels with the 1912 disaster, where the captain repeatedly ignored warnings about an incoming iceberg but carried on at top speed.
The five on Titan were killed instantly when the submersible suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ just 1,600ft from the bow of the wrecked ocean liner, the US Coast Guard announced yesterday. A remotely operated submarine from a Canadian ship found debris on the ocean floor.
But officials say the men were likely to have died on Sunday – before military planes using sonar buoys detected what they thought could have been SOS ‘banging’ sounds in the water. The US Navy said they heard a sound consistent with an implosion when communications were lost around two hours after they dived. The Navy passed on that information to the Coast Guard, an insider said.
Mr Cameron told BBC News that the Coast Guard search ‘felt like a prolonged and nightmarish charade where people are running around talking about banging noises and talking about oxygen and all this other stuff’.
‘I knew that sub was sitting exactly underneath its last known depth and position. That’s exactly where they found it,’ he said.
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