Patrick Lahey, the CEO of Triton Submarines has spoken out about his interest in creating a submersible which is able to traverse the depths of the ocean in order to visit the Titanic wreckage
Another billionaire has expressed an interest in visiting the Titanic wreck, two years after the Oceangate tragedy which left five people dead.
Patrick Lahey, CEO of Triton Submarines, spoke to the New York Post about how “fascinating” the Titanic’s wreckage would be to visit. “Besides it being a wreck of historical significance, the fact that it lies at such great depth makes it fascinating to visit,” Lahey said, whose company is in the midst of building a new commercially available submersible which might handle the journey.
“I heard that somebody is going down to the Titanic in a couple weeks,” a knowledgeable source told the publication. “What I can tell you is that he’s a billionaire. Going down there will cost $10 million. You would recognise his name.”
It comes after a damning report revealed the chief executive of the ill-fated Titan submersible “completely ignored” inspection and maintenance protocols before it catastrophically imploded whilst journeying to the Titanic wreckage.
Stockton Rush, the OceanGate boss who perished aboard the vessel in June 2023, was permitted to disregard crucial data leading up to the tragedy due to inadequate oversight, the US Marine Board of Investigation determined.
Rush – whom the report accused of employing “intimidation tactics” to evade scrutiny – bore responsibility for the deaths of four other passengers who were also trapped inside the cramped craft, the inquiry concluded in findings released on Tuesday.
The US Coast Guard’s comprehensive report, following an intricate two-year probe, identified the principal cause of the implosion as the “failure to follow established engineering protocols for safety, testing and maintenance” whilst cataloguing eight separate contributing factors to the disaster.
The investigation also highlighted four additional contributing elements, including the company’s “critically flawed” safety culture and operational methods, which demonstrated “glaring disparities between their written safety protocols and their actual practices”. The report also revealed that Rush “misrepresented Titan as indestructible”, creating “a false sense of safety” for passengers.
It further highlighted that the company’s senior management fostered a culture where financial constraints and customer demands took precedence over safety obligations.
The document also pointed to insufficient “comprehensive regulations for the oversight of manned submersibles” as a contributing factor.
The report declared: “The lack of both third-party oversight and experienced OceanGate employees on staff during their 2023 Titan operations allowed OceanGate’s Chief Executive Officer to completely ignore vital inspections, data analyses, and preventative maintenance procedures, culminating in a catastrophic event.”
#Titanic #wreck #set #visited #billionaire #years #Oceangate #tragedy
