Billionaire plans new trips to Titanic wreck to prove dives are safe after OceanGate disaster

28 May 2024, 09:44 | Updated: 28 May 2024, 09:49

A US billionaire is planning another expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic to prove the safety of future sightseeing tours to the oceans’ depths.

Real estate magnate Larry Connor, from Ohio, said he wants 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.|

He gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal describing his plans - which include a $20 million craft named the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer.

He said his craft will be capable of repeat dives to the Titanic.

“You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago,” he said.

His comments come nearly a year after the fatal implosion of OceanGate’s Titan sub - which had been headed to the Titanic site when it suffered a “catastrophic” failure in the deep, killing everyone on board.

Mr Connor told the Wall Street Journal that a few days after the Titan disaster, he called  Triton Submarines co-founder Patrick Lahey and urged him to build a better craft.

“[He said], you know, what we need to do is build a sub that can dive to [Titanic-level depths] repeatedly and safely and demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that, and that Titan was a contraption,’” Lahey told the paper.

OceanGate boss Stockton Rush, billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Sulaiman, died instantly when the Titan imploded under the pressure of the Atlantic Ocean last year.

The new craft, nicknamed 4,000 after the depth in metres it can reach, costs $20m.

Triton co-founder Mr Lahey was among industry figures who criticised OceanGate both before and after the Titan sub disaster.

Following the implosion, he called OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush's strategy for getting people on board "quite predatory."