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<\/div>\nJay Bloom politely declined a last-minute chance to join the season’s final expedition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For a year, Stockton Rush had tried to convince Las Vegas-based investor Jay Bloom to buy a couple of spots on his company’s submersible so Bloom and his son could experience the once-in-a-lifetime thrill of visiting the deep-sea wreck of the Titanic.<\/p>\n
Bloom was intrigued, he said in an interview on Friday. His son Sean, now 20, had been fascinated by the story of the doomed British passenger liner as a child.<\/p>\n
But the more Bloom read about the Titan submersible, the more concerned he grew about how safe it was. So he said he politely declined a last-minute chance to join the season’s final expedition, claiming scheduling conflicts.<\/p>\n
Instead, Bloom said, the two available seats on board went to Pakistani-born magnate Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman \u2013 who perished, along with Rush and two others, this week when the Titan imploded deep below the surface of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
For Bloom, who lost a good friend, actor Treat Williams, in a motorcycle accident less than two weeks ago, the tragedy was a reminder of what really matters in life.<\/p>\n
“Every time I see a picture of that Pakistani businessman and his 19-year-old son, I think how easily that could have been me and my 20-year-old son \u2013 but for the grace of God,” Bloom said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, after the US Coast Guard announced it had located pieces of the Titan on the ocean floor, Bloom posted a series of text messages on Facebook between himself and Rush from earlier this year, in which Rush dismissed the notion that the trip was dangerous.<\/p>\n
“While there’s obviously risk, it’s way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving,” Rush wrote in one message, asserting that no one had even been hurt aboard a non-military sub in 35 years.<\/p>\n
Bloom, who has a private helicopter license, was unconvinced. He was particularly worried about Stockton’s use of consumer-grade parts in the Titan \u2013 including a video game joystick used to control the vessel \u2013 and the novel carbon-fiber hull, and he was “spooked” by the fact that passengers were unable to open the Titan from the inside, even in an emergency.<\/p>\n
“The more I learned about what was going on with Stockton’s operation, the more concerned I got,” he said.<\/p>\n
Guillermo S\u00f6hnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Rush in 2009, said Rush was “keenly aware” of the dangers of exploring the ocean depths and was “very risk-averse.”<\/p>\n
But safety questions about the Titan’s design had been raised as far back as 2018, both by industry experts and by a former employee of Rush’s firm.<\/p>\n
Bloom said Rush’s confidence was unshakable.<\/p>\n
“It was his dream,” Bloom said. “He’s a good guy, I really liked him, and I think he had good intentions. But he drank his own Kool-Aid.”<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n