On Friday, the ex-business partner of Stockton Rush, the pilot of the Titanic submersible, emphasized their shared commitment to prioritizing safety during the establishment of their deep-sea exploration company.
James Cameron, renowned director of the movie “Titanic,” accused OceanGate Expeditions of disregarding safety warnings following a tragic implosion that claimed the lives of Rush and four others during their descent to the shipwreck.
Guillermo Soehnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Rush but departed from the company in 2013, clarified that he was not involved in the design of the Titan submersible. Nonetheless, he refuted any suggestion that his former colleague was reckless.
“He was extremely committed to safety,” he told Britain’s Times Radio.
“He was also extremely diligent about managing risks, and was very keenly aware of the dangers of operating in a deep ocean environment.
“So that’s one of the main reasons I agreed to go into business with him in 2009.”
Soehnlein pointed out that Cameron personally undertook numerous submersible descents, which included over 30 visits to the Titanic site in the North Atlantic and exploration of the Earth’s deepest point in the Pacific Mariana Trench.
“I think he was asked about a similar risk and he said, ‘look, if something happens at that depth, it will be catastrophic in a matter of microseconds.’”
“To the point where the implosion happens at almost supersonic speeds, and you’d basically be dead before your brain could even process that anything was wrong.”
Soehnlein stressed, however, that it was too soon to say what happened to the Titan, and that it was “tricky to navigate” to formulate global regulations for submersibles designed to go ultra deep.
But deep-sea exploration should continue despite the tragedy, he said.
“Just like with space exploration, the best way to preserve the memories and the legacies of these five explorers is to conduct an investigation, find out what went wrong, take lessons learned, and then move forward.”
