OceanGate co-founder voiced confidence in sub before learning of implosion: "I'd be in that sub" if given a chance

A co-founder of OceanGate, the company behind the ill-fated sub voyage to the wreckage of the Titanic that resulted in the deaths of five people, supported the trips during an interview in which he learned that the massive search for the sub uncovered debris.

"If I had the opportunity to go right now, I'd be in that sub myself," Guillermo Söhnlein told BBC News during an interview Thursday.

Söhnlein co-founded OceanGate in 2009 with Stockton Rush, the company's CEO who died with four others in the sub when officials say it imploded in the north Atlantic Ocean about 1,600 feet from the wreckage of the Titanic. Söhnlein stopped working at the company in 2013 but is a minority equity owner, according to a statement he posted to Facebook.

During Thursday's interview, he was told about the U.S. Coast Guard's announcement that an ROV, or remotely operated vehicle, found a debris field but didn't immediately confirm that it was from the sub. Söhnlein said the conditions at the depth of the Titanic wreck — 2 1/2 miles underwater — are challenging for any sub.

"Regardless of the sub, when you're operating at depths like 3,800 meters down, the pressure is so great on any sub that if there is a failure, it would be an instantaneous implosion, and so that, if that's what happened, that's what would have happened four days ago," Söhnlein said.

The Coast Guard later announced that the underwater robot's findings were consistent with a "catastrophic implosion." Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy official told CBS News the Navy detected "an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion" shortly after the sub, named Titan, lost contact with the surface during Sunday's dive. The information was relayed to the Coast Guard, which used it to narrow the radius of the search area, the official told CBS News.

Söhnlein said the company's protocol for losing communications was to bring the sub to the surface and he had thought that's what happened.

"My biggest fear through this whole thing watching the operations unfold was that they're floating around on the surface and they're just very difficult to find," Söhnlein said.

The Coast Guard said authorities would collect as much information on the implosion as they could in an effort to explain what happened.

On Friday, Söhnlein told the Reuters news agency the implosion should be treated like catastrophes that have happened in space travel.

"Let's figure out what went wrong, let's learn lessons and let's get down there again," Söhnlein said. "If anything, what we're feeling is an even stronger imperative to continue doing this kind of exploration work. I think it's important for humanity, and it's probably the best way to honor the five crew members who gave up their lives doing something that they loved."

In:
• RMS Titanic

Alex Sundby

Alex Sundby is a senior editor for CBSNews.com

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