Few people refuse to learn from their mistakes more than the astronomically wealthy. Take Ohio billionaire Larry Connor, who watched the news of the people dying in a submarine explosion last year with rapt fascination and decided he couldn’t wait to join their ranks.
Much like the Twitter users who declared that they would knowingly board the doomed vessel for two McDoubles and a large fries, Connor recently told the Wall Street Journal about his plans to prove that a trip deep underwater to visit the wreckage of the Titanic can be done safely if it’s completed in a well-engineered submersible.
Ohio Billionaire Larry Connor will take $20M sub down to Titanic wreck site to prove industry is safer after OceanGate incident.
— The Wave (@_thewavetv) May 27, 2024
He will be joined by CEO of Triton Submarines Patrick Laney. pic.twitter.com/VN6JerIszW
“I want 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,” Connor explained to the paper.
With this desire in mind, he contacted Triton Submarines about the possibility of building a submarine that can successfully travel to the Titanic’s depths in order to prove to the world that it’s possible and that the Titan, the submersible involved in the 2023 disaster, was merely a “contraption.”
https://t.co/VibGP7lZml pic.twitter.com/zZK10lHKlo
— ✰ (@beowyfe) May 28, 2024
Triton CEO Patrick Lahey and Connor plan to travel down to the Titanic in a two-person vessel, and Connor explained that Lahey has been hoping to design a vessel suitable for deep exploration years ago, but the materials and technology just didn’t exist yet.
Hey, we are getting a Season 2 https://t.co/h0UeZ0DKLV
— Big Red Celt (@BigRedCeltTT) May 28, 2024
The vessel they’ll be using is called the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, and costs an estimated $20 million, according to the company’s website. The “4000” refers to how deep it can travel in meters (the Titanic sits at 3,800 meters below sea level).
We don’t yet know when the two will be making their journey, but rest assured, you will hear about it one way or the other. Either they’ll succeed where the Titan failed, or they’ll follow the five passengers who died on board to their watery graves.
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