TITAN TRAGEDY
Why did Expedition Unknown’s Josh Gates refuse to film show on Titan?
Gates says he was given the opportunity to visit the wreckage of the Titanic aboard the Titan submersible, but decided against it.
Josh Gates, the presenter of the US television show Expedition Unknown, this week revealed that fears over his safety led him to turn down the chance to film the wreckage of the Titanic aboard the Titan submersible.
Gates tweeted on Wednesday that he accompanied OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush on a preparatory dive, but walked away from the opportunity to board the Titan for a second time.
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“Titan did not perform well on my dive”
“I had the unique opportunity to dive in the @Oceangate #Titan sub with Stockton at the helm in preparation for its maiden mission to Titanic,” Gates said.
He later added: “To those asking, #Titan did not perform well on my dive. Ultimately, I walked away from a huge opportunity to film Titanic due to my safety concerns w/ the @OceanGate platform. There’s more to the history and design of Titan that has not been made public - much of it concerning.”
Finally, Gates tweeted: “To those questioning why people would dive to Titanic: the ship has fascinated the world since the night she sank. It’s a time capsule to another era of our history. It takes courage to make a trip like this.”
Titan lost in “catastrophic implosion”
Rush, who co-founded OceanGate, was among the occupants of the Titan when it disappeared on Sunday, after setting off on a dive to the Titanic, which sits 3,800m below the surface of the North Atlantic.
On Thursday, the US Coast Guard confirmed that a debris field had been found close to the Titanic, with the five people on board believed to have been killed by a “catastrophic implosion”.