A US luxury real estate billionaire and a deep-sea explorer are planning to travel in a submersible to explore the Titanic, despite last year’s doomed voyage of the Titan Submersible.
Ohio tycoon and adventurer Larry Connor and Patrick Lahey, co-founder of Triton Submarines, say they want to take a sub to a depth of around 3,800m (12,467ft) to see the shipwreck in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The private submersible industry was rocked after five people were killed when a vessel built by OceanGate imploded en route to the Titanic last year.
A spokesman for Mr Connor’s company said on Tuesday that the proposed voyage would only take place once a vessel was fully certified by a marine organisation.
Larry Connor, 74, who made his wealth in real estate, said he’s building a new acrylic-hulled submersible that will be certified and rigorously tested to show that deep sea exploration is safe and return to the Titanic in the summer of 2026.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Connor called Lahey just days after OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded last year while carrying five passengers and told him he wanted to build a sub that could withstand plunging the depths to visit the Titanic.
Connor, who is worth an estimated $2 billion, reportedly told Lahey that he wanted to “demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that.”
“I want to show people that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Connor told The Journal.
According to the report, Lahey and Connor will plunge the depths in the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, a two-person vessel so named because it can dive an estimated 4,000 meters.
A spokesman for Connor told FOX Business that the mission “is to demonstrate the feasibility of constructing and operating a never-before-built, one-of-a-kind submarine capable of deep-sea exploration.”
Triton Submarines describes the vessel as a “high-performance, flexible platform designed specifically for professional applications.”
The Titan submarine built by OceanGate was constructed of carbon fibre and was only certified to 1,300m, far short of the depths of the ocean floor where the Titanic wreck lay.
In June 2023 the vessel imploded while on a trip to the Titanic wreckage. OceanGate’s chief executive Stockton Rush, 61, died on board alongside four other passengers: British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77, a former French navy diver.
Mr Rush was known for pushing the envelope when it came to safety, and he had ignored several warnings from advisers about potential issues with the Titan. Investigations by US and Canadian authorities are ongoing.
Mr Connor told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the proposed Triton expedition: “I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way.”
The private submersible industry suffered after the Titan disaster, and the pair hope that a successful voyage will reignite interest.
OceanGate suspended operations and other firms reported cancelled orders and declining sales after the Titan implosion. Mr Lahey told the newspaper: “This tragedy had a chilling effect on people’s interest in these vehicles.”
Mr Lahey co-founded Triton Submarines in 2008. Mr Connor is head of The Connor Group, a real estate investment firm based near Dayton, Ohio.
In 2021, the duo ventured together in a submersible to the Challenger Deep and the Sirena Deep in the Mariana Trench. At nearly 36,000ft, the trench is the deepest point on the Earth’s seabed.
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