A six-month old CBS story about the missing OceanGate submarine is going viral after host David Pogue raised concerns about the vessel’s safety.
On Sunday (June 18), the submarine vanished off the coast of Canada. At the time it was carrying five passengers: British billionaire Hamish Harding, British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, former French Navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and chief executive of OceanGate Stockton Rush.
David visited OceanGate operations and was submerged in the $1 million submersible last year.
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David was first given a tour of the submarine. He remarked on its “improvised design”, which included lighting from Camping World and an unofficial Playstation controller that was used to drive the submersible.
“It seems like this submersible has some elements of MacGyvery jerry-rigged-ness. You are putting construction pipes as ballast,” he said to Stockton during an interview.
“I don’t know if I would use that description,” Stockton replied. He noted that OceanGate collaborated with Boeing and Nasa on the pressure vessel. “Everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you’re still going to be safe.”
David admitted that he felt slightly nervous about boarding the vessel and read out some of the stipulations from the waiver he was required to sign, which described the submarine as an “experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death.”
Later in the video, the submarine lost contact with its launch ship. “We were lost for two-and-a-half hours,” said one passenger, who paid $250,000 for a ticket. The subsequent launch was successful and the submersible found the Titanic shipwreck.
A clip from the TV spot went viral on Twitter and has been viewed over 9 million times at the time of writing. See the full video down below.
Earlier today, Hamish‘s friend revealed the last text he sent him before the expedition was underway.
Our continued thoughts are with the passengers, crew, and their loved ones.