The co-founder of the company involved in the Titan submarine implosion said he is planning more projects despite the disaster.
Participants paid $250,000 each to OceanGate to descend to the Titanic wreck from the surface but two miles down, an implosion caused the sub to collapse violently in an instant.
The disaster killed the companyCEO Stockton Rush, explorer Hamish Harding, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his 19-year-old son, Sulaiman on June 18 last year.
Rescue crews worked around the clock to find the sub after it vanished from radars, however, five days later, debris was found on the ocean floor.
One year later, Guillermo Sohnlein, who co-founded the firm with Rush in 2009, has promised to carry on pursuing projects, with the disaster not diminishing his ambitions.
Sohnlein, 58, told The Sun: “The interesting thing with the exploration community is that we know that what we do carries a certain level of risk.
“And we know that as much as we try mitigating that risk and managing that risk, things will go wrong. You hope that when they go wrong they won't be fatal. But you know that there's risk, and things will go wrong.”
The ex-US Marines captain said that such tragedies force explorers to “reflect and have a reality check” and embark on future projects with the lessons learned.
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“It seems to be even more heightened when that setback leads to fatalities because I think part of it is, that the rest of the exploration community wants to make sure that the legacies of the people who lost their lives are honoured by continuing to go forward.”
He said that continuing to explore the oceans, would mean that those who lost their lives would not have died in vain.
Sondlein, who left the company in 2013, said that Rush would be disappointed to know that OceanGate had suspended all of its operations.
The Titan was on an eight-day expedition off the coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland.
However just 45 minutes into the journey, the Titan imploded due to the oceanic pressure against the sub.
A spokesman for OceanGate said: “On the anniversary of the tragic implosion of the Titan, we remember the five remarkable individuals who perished: Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Stockton Rush.
“We express our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones, as well as everyone impacted by this tragedy.
“As previously announced, OceanGate has ceased all operations and is continuing to cooperate with authorities, including the U.S. Coast Guard, in their investigations.”
