For the third consecutive day on June 20, rescuers combed through thousands of square miles in the remote North Atlantic, racing against time to locate a missing submersible. The vessel vanished while taking affluent tourists on a deep-sea journey to view the Titanic wreckage off Canada's coast.
Mike Reiss, a writer, and producer for the Simpsons, who participated in the previous Ocean Gate Expeditions’ Titanic Exploration Trio, recounted his experience as a passenger on board the Titan, which he described as a peaceful experience.
Hear the inside story of my trip last year on the lost Titanic tourist sub. https://t.co/mTE7BmOa8X pic.twitter.com/LzifffxXhX
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReissWriter) June 20, 2023
‘It's a Zen-like experience. People have been very surprised to hear that. We got in the submarine. It's a two-and-a-half-hour drop straight down to the bottom of the ocean. And I fell asleep. For all the excitement of it all, I fell asleep. It was just so, so calm. There's such a beautiful interior of the submarine. It's a meditative space. And I didn't wake up till we touched bottom and reached the area where the Titanic was’, he told Reuters.
As per its specifications, the Titan can remain submerged for 96 hours, providing the five occupants until June 22 morning before their air supply runs out.
As Daryo earlier reported, the submersible carried one pilot and four passengers when it lost contact with a surface vessel approximately one hour and 45 minutes into its dive on June 18.
Mike Reiss believes that the team's chances of survival appear bleak as they may be stranded at the bottom of the ocean, possibly due to a breach.
‘The phrase you keep hearing is 'they lost communications,' and they may be just out of range, that they came back to the surface and they're just out of radio contact with someone. I find that very unlikely. And I think they may be stuck at the bottom of the ocean. Perhaps there was a breach, and water came in. I'm not very optimistic about their return. But, you know, it's a cliché, but it's true; if this is the end for them, they went out doing something they loved’, Mike Reiss said, stressing that the crew is similar to early aviation and space exploration pioneers.
"There are problems with the ship. You know, there are problems with the submarine because it's an experimental vessel, and they're learning as they go along, again, just like the early space program or the early aviators. But it is a well-built, well-thought-out piece of work. And it's, it's manned by people who don't take risks, who are more than willing to just scrap a mission if there's even the slightest thing that might go wrong", he added.
During an eight-hour trip to the Titanic wreckage site, the submersible embarked on by OceanGate Expeditions' founder and CEO Stockton Rush, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, accompanied by his nineteen-year-old son, lost communication with its support vessel after an hour and forty-five minutes.
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