The Titan submersible that was traveling to the depths of the sunken Titanic disappeared nearly a year ago today and was later found to have imploded during its descent, killing five people. Now, another billionaire is reportedly preparing to make that same journey — also in a submersible, though one built by a different company.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Larry Connor, a real estate and tech billionaire from Ohio, and Patrick Lahey, the founder and CEO of Triton Submarines, are planning to make the same expedition to the Titanic wreckage 3,800 meters below sea level. Neither said when will the voyage take place, but the vessel they intend to travel in is the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, valued at $20 million and reportedly built using cutting-edge materials and tech to design.
The Titan tragedy exposed the fatal downsides of the unregulated deep-sea tourism industry. After the vessel disappeared last year, a massive amount of resources was deployed to search for those aboard the submersible; many contrasted it with the tepid global response to a mass humanitarian crisis that involved the sinking of a migrant boat just days prior.
Of course, Lahey and Connor believe that the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer will be far more secure than the Titan submersible, which had faced safety concerns for years. “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 told the Journal.
But who else could enjoy such an experience besides billionaires such as himself? Like space tourism (also a province of the ultra-rich), deep-sea tourism costs an exorbitant amount of money and is thus only available to the most affluent. OceanGate, for example, reportedly charged $250,000 per person for Titanic expeditions before the disaster happened and it ceased operations. Triton Submarines itself was described by the Journal as “one of the leading makers of personal submersibles, serving a deep-pocketed clientele with aspirations of exploring the undersea realm.”
