A CBS reporter who last year rode the Titan submersible that vanished off the coast of Canada this week with five people inside told USA TODAY parts of the vessel seemed “less sophisticated” and described the safety features meant to avoid a crisis like the one it’s currently facing.
“I was anticipating a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I got it,” CBS correspondent David Pogue told USA TODAY’s “5 Things” podcast.
Pogue boarded submersible for a CBS report that aired in November alongside OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who is among the five missing passengers on the voyage to tour the wreckage of the Titanic.
Pogue’s account has drawn attention not just because it’s a rare first-hand look at the experience of being in a submersible, but because of the snags it hit along the way. Pogue told USA TODAY on Tuesday afternoon that the Titan got “lost” for a few hours and couldn’t find the wreckage of the Titanic during one of the dives on that trip, but unlike the current situation, it never lost all communication with crews on the surface.
His report also highlighted some of the “jerry-rigged” parts helping the vessel operate.
“There were parts of it that seemed to me to be less sophisticated than I was guessing. You drive it with a PlayStation video controller… some of the ballasts are old, rusty construction pipes,” Pogue told USA TODAY. “There were certain things that looked like cut corners.”
In a tweet of the report, Pogue linked to video of himself describing the submarine as having as much room as a minivan. Pogue said the vessel was the only five-person sub that could reach Titanic depths.
Rush, CEO of the company that owns the submersible, argued against the description of the Titan as being “MacGyvery” in the CBS report.
Rush told Pogue that important components of the submersible such as the pressure vessel were solidly engineered alongside NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington. “Everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you’re still going to be safe,” Rush said.
The submersible has “about 40 hours of breathable air left,” U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jason Frederick said Tuesday afternoon. Frederick said rescue teams have searched 7,600 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean since Sunday without any results. The Titan had a 96-hour oxygen supply when it went to sea at about 6 a.m. Sunday, according to OceanGate Expeditions adviser David Concannon.
CBS correspondent David Pogue: ‘This is adventure travel’
Pogue told USA TODAY that the people who pay to go down in the submersible are adventure-lovers. They also have to have the means to pay the $250,000 fee to take the trip.
“This is adventure travel. This is for adrenaline-seekers, people who live on the edge,” he said.
Rush told Pogue during their ride last year that the trip on the Titan shouldn’t require a lot of skill on the passengers’ part.
“We only have one button and that’s it,” Rush said in the CBS report. “It should be like an elevator.
Passengers assist with a variety of tasks on the submersible, according to OceanGate Expeditions’ website, accessed through the Internet Archive by USA TODAY, including sonar operation, taking photos or videos and assisting the pilot with communications between the sub and the surface.
Pogue says OceanGate CEO told him parts of the sub were ‘very high-end’
Pogue publicly addressed concerns with the Titan’s construction in his CBS report and with USA TODAY.
Despite the appearance of “cut corners,” he told USA TODAY that OceanGate CEO Stockton reassured him “that the part that we care about, where the people are, the pressure capsule, is very high-end.”
He replied to a Twitter user Tuesday saying there were “many red flags” that urged him to challenge Rush on the submersible’s construction and the safety of future passengers. Pogue had already been concerned about the vehicle prior to his experiences on it.
“Yes, I was pretty terrified. I didn’t sleep the night before at all,” Pogue wrote on Twitter.
He described in the CBS report a breakdown in communication that caused the submersible to get lost in an attempt to find the Titanic last summer. That trip down below was aborted before it could reach the wreckage, which he told USA TODAY was “par for the course” for every excursion.
“This submersible does not have any kind of beacon like that. On my expedition last summer, they did indeed get lost for about 5 hours, and adding such a beacon was discussed,” Pogue tweeted. “They could still send short texts to the sub, but did not know where it was. It was quiet and very tense, and they shut off the ship’s internet to prevent us from tweeting.”
What you need to know about sub:Maps, graphics show last location, depth and design
Titan passengers signed safety waivers in case of bad outcome
Pogue described the safety waiver he had to sign to ride the Titan submarine, which included many clauses specifying ways passengers might be injured or killed.
“An experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body … could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death,” Pogue read off a form in his CBS report before saying, “where do I sign?”
He said Tuesday that because the submersible operates in international waters, it’s not regulated or inspected by any governmental body. There are dangers involved every step of the way, he said.
“The waiver, basically it’s eight paragraphs of ways that you could get permanently disabled or killed,” he told USA TODAY.
Submersible had safety features in place
Pogue told USA TODAY members of the trip went through mandatory daily briefings and were even taught how to put on smoke masks and use fire extinguishers in case of a scenario where there was smoke on the craft.
He said the expedition has a “safety-conscious culture.”
There were fail safes for emergencies, Pogue said, including one method that would allow the submersible to rise up to the surface on its own after several hours even if all the people on board somehow lost consciousness.
“Nobody ever said, ‘here’s what you do if we lose communication and are trapped under the sea,’ because it just seems impossibly remote,” he said.
Pogue said to his knowledge, over three years of doing these expeditions, a situation with a total communication failure like we’re seeing now has never happened before.
