Entrepreneur Guillermo Shonlein, co-founder of OceanGate, which has made trips to the wreck of the Titanic and owner of the Titanic submersible, refuses to criticize the company’s safety.
“People only talk about the safety certification and ignore the 14 years of development of the Titan submersible,” Shonlein told BBC Radio 4.
Guillermo Shonlein, an American of Argentine origin, left the company ten years ago but still has a minority stake in OceanGate and stressed that criticism of the Titan disaster – which killed all five occupants – is the result of ” lack of information”.
According to the co-founder of the company “any specialist, even [o realizador de cinema James] Cameron will also admit that they were not present when the sub was designed, nor were they present during the engineering process and during the construction (of the Titan).”
The company’s minority partner also says the underwater vehicle underwent, at the time of construction, a rigorous testing program.
For Shonlein, the incident is a “tragic loss for ocean explorers,” adding that anyone who “works at sea knows the risk of being under (oceanic) pressure and that they are at risk of implosion.”
The United States Coast Guard confirmed this Thursday that the debris found in the area of the “Titanic” remains corresponds to the external part of the submersible that disappeared on Sunday and that it suffered a “catastrophic implosion” without leaving survivors. .
The implosion would have occurred near the wreck of the “Titanic”, where the submersible was headed, Coast Guard authorities said at a press conference held after notifying the relatives of the victims.
“The wreckage is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” said Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard 1st District.
The OceanGate company, which organized the expedition, had released the information moments before that the five passengers of the “Titan” submersible were dead.
It is still unknown if the implosion occurred on Sunday or in the following days, in which an international search was carried out to find the missing submersible.
The area where the wreck of the “Titan” is located is located 488 meters from the wreck of the “Titanic”.
Source: TSF
