(Trends Wide )– A father and son gave up their seats on the Titan submarine over safety concerns just weeks before its catastrophic implosion, they told Trends Wide.
Investor Jay Bloom and his son Sean said they were both concerned about the submersible and its ability to travel deep into the ocean ahead of the planned voyage.
Their seats eventually went to Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, the father and son who were on board when the ship imploded and were among the five passengers who perished.
“I saw a lot of red flags. It was only meant for five people. I just didn’t think I could survive diving that low into the ocean,” Sean, 20, told Trends Wide’s Erin Burnett on Friday night.
He recalled watching a video of Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, the company that offers the deep-sea expedition, walking around the submersible and its features.
“In the end, I ended up warning my dad about it, and he ended up agreeing with me,” she said.
Titan was a submersible that offered wealthy passengers the chance to view the wreckage of the Titanic, which lies 4,000 meters below sea level.
It suffered a catastrophic implosion under the enormous pressures of the deep sea, instantly killing all five passengers.
The other three on board were Rush, British businessman Hamish Harding, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
‘Different risk appetite’
Jay Bloom described the experience of learning what happened to the Titan as “very surreal.”
“The most disturbing thing is when you watch the news, it jumps on my laptop and social media, TV, it was everywhere,” he said.
He shared text message exchanges with Rush where he was offered the spots on the ship for the May expedition.
He said Rush flew to Las Vegas in March to try to get him to buy tickets.
Jay recalled that the CEO flew an experimental two-seater plane he built, which deepened his reservations.
“I started thinking about it. He’s coming in an experimental two-seater plane to convince me to go in an experimental five-seater submarine that he’s built to the bottom of the ocean to see the Titanic,” Jay said.
“He has a different risk appetite than I do,” he said. “I’m a pilot. I have my helicopter pilot’s license. I wouldn’t get on an experimental plane.”
Both Jay and Sean said that Rush had dismissed questions or concerns that they had raised with the sub during the process.
The authorities involved continue to scour the ocean floor for debris in the hope that any discoveries may help them better understand the fatal incident.
This Friday, the authorities of Canada and the United States announced that they would launch investigations into the implosion.
However, it is not clear whether the investigations by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and the US Coast Guard would be one or two separate simultaneous examinations.
Jay said the decision not to go still haunts him.
“All I could see when I saw father and son was that it was me and my son, it could have been us,” Jay said.
