The OceanGate executive reportedly encouraged passengers on a voyage to the wreckage of the Titanic in 2021 to ‘sleep’ when one of the Titan submarine’s batteries ‘broken’ during the journey.
That’s what a videographer who was part of the expedition told the BBC’s ‘The Travel Show’ in 2022. According to Jaden Pan, the battery died about two hours later. the start of the dive.
Not far from the wreckage, the founder of OceanGate, Stockton Rush, had then informed the five passengers that they had to go back to the surface.
“At first I thought he was joking because we were over two hours away from our expedition and so close to the bottom,” Mr Pan said during the broadcast.
“He then explained to me that one of the batteries had failed and we were having trouble using the electronics for the weights so it would be difficult for us to get back to the surface,” he said. -he adds.
The leader would then have offered his passengers to sleep while the weights dissolve, a process that can take up to 24 hours to rise to the surface.
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Half of the crew refused this solution and forced Stockton Rush to use another solution via a hydraulic pump to reduce the weight and thus allow the machine to go up. The Titan then returned to the surface, according to the “New York Post” which relates this story.
Recall that Mr. Rush was at the helm of the submarine when it imploded on June 18, killing all those on board, including British billionaire Hamish Harding, French expert on the Titanic Paul-Henri Nargeolet, tycoon Pakistani Shahzada Dawood, and his son Sulaiman.