A property billionaire is planning to dive more than 12,000ft underwater in a custom-made submarine to prove underwater exploration is safe – almost a year on from the Titan disaster that killed five doing the same thing,
Larry Connor, 74, is reportedly so undeterred by the OceanGate disaster last June that he was on the phone to a rival firm days after it happened asking it to build a better submersible.
Mr Connor, a NASA-certified private astronaut, has no fears about the Triton 4000 submarine he will share with its manufacturer’s co-founder, Patrick Lahey despite last year’s tragedy, which counted three British citizens among the dead.
The newly designed underwater exploration vehicle reportedly costs a cool £15million – and will have presumably overcome the presumed flaws that saw the OceanGate Titan implode before it reached the ill-fated liner.
Businessman Mr Connor is no stranger to chasing adrenaline: he competed in the 2004 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, is a private pilot involved in aerobatic competitions and an experienced submariner.
Ohio real-estate investor and businessman, Larry Connor (left) says he is signed up for an expedition to the Titanic. He is pictured with Triton Submarines boss Patrick Lahey after they travelled to more than 20,000ft beneath the ocean surface in another Triton sub
Thrillseeker Larry Connor is no stranger to risk – he is a private pilot, racing driver and an astronaut (pictured: his Axiom Space portrait)
They will use the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer to explore the ocean depths. It was used to film the BBC’s Blue Planet series
The bow of the Titanic. The infamous ocean liner has sat in the Atlantic Ocean for 112 years since striking an iceberg
The announcement of the voyage comes less than a year after the OceanGate Titan (pictured) imploded in the ocean as it dove to the Titanic, killing all on board
Triton clients have already made various dives this year, from exploring the Mariana Trench, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Arctic Ocean (Pictured: a Triton 660 AVA sub)
But as for when he and Mr Lahey will dive to see the Titanic, there is no date in sight.
The Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer – so named for the depth in metres (13,100ft) it will be capable of diving to – will only be deployed once its manufacturers are certain it can withstand the extreme pressure at such a depth.
‘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 told the Wall Street Journal.
‘Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade. But we didn’t have the materials and technology. You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago.’
Triton – and Mr Connor – do have experience in commissioning submarines capable of withstanding the extreme conditions of the world’s ocean depths.
Its experimental Triton 36000/2 sub took him to one of the deepest known points of ocean in the world, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. He dived to depths below 20,000 feet three times in five days in April 2021.
There is wariness, however, about the new vessel after the OceanGate disaster last June which killed the firm’s chief executive, 61-year-old Stockton Rush, and four others.
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 were all killed.
Oceangate’s Titan was only safely certified for 1,300 metres (4,300ft), far short of where it needed to be to reach the Titanic wreck. The company had insisted the vessel was capable of deeper dives.
The implosion was so sudden and violent that experts have concluded those inside would have died quicker than their brains could process what was happening.
Rush was known for his cavalier approach to submersibles – the Titan was controlled with a modified Logitech game controller that was designed to be used for playing PC games – and investigations are ongoing into the disaster.
Rush, prior to his death, dismissed concerns about safety standards on the Titan as ‘baseless cries’, reports the BBC, and once told a podcast of his approach to protective measures: ‘At some point, safety is just pure waste.’
British explorer Hamish Harding was among those killed in the ‘catastrophic implosion’ on the Oceangate Titan submarine
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) was in the sub along with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition
Shahzada Dawood (right) and his son Suleman (left) were killed in the Oceangate disaster
Triton, meanwhile, says its subs have an ‘unblemished safety record’ and are rigorously tested to international safety standards.
And both the company, and the Triton 4000/2, have a strong CV. The BBC used Triton subs of the same type Larry Connor hopes to use when filming underwater wildlife documentary series Blue Planet.
‘As a platform, the Triton Abyssal Explorer’s capabilities are simply unmatched,’ reads a description on the Triton website.
The firm’s marketing director Sophie Bentham-Wood previously told the Mail: ‘Everyone realizes the deep ocean is no place for compromise – therefore, the need for programs to solely employ submersibles with full classification certification in their operations is not an option, but a prerequisite.’
Mr Lahey, who has more than four decades of experience in underwater exploration, previously described Stockton Rush’s appetite for high-profile travellers on his submarines as ‘quite predatory’ in an interview with The Times.
And the risks associated with underwater exploration carry personal heft for him: he was close friends with Paul-Henry Nargeolet, killed on the Titan.
Paying tribute to Nargeolet, a close friend he called ‘PH’, Mr Lahey added: ‘It’s a terribly sad thing that his life ended that way but PH knew the risks. I told him in very candid terms why he shouldn’t be out there. He understood.
‘I believe PH thought in some way that by being out there he could help these guys avoid a tragedy but instead he ended up in the middle of one.’
