Man Who Turned Down Seat on Titan Sub Would Still Go to Titanic

If the Titan submersible that imploded in the Atlantic Ocean in June 2023 had conducted its expedition months earlier, Jay Bloom may not be alive today.

Bloom and his son, Sean, 20 years old at the time, were originally offered two seats by OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. They were even offered ticket prices of $150,000 each, a discount from the $250,000 sought by Rush, yet the pair declined due to what was described as “all kinds of [red] flags.”

“I’ll put it like this. If Elon Musk called me and said, ‘Hey, let’s go to space,’ I’d probably consider going and probably would go because he’s got the resources,” Bloom told Newsweek ahead of the one-year anniversary of the implosion. “He’s got the expertise. He bought the talent. He’s a talented guy in his own right.

“But if you said, ‘Hey, I built a rocket in my backyard. Let’s go to space,’ I’d probably decline. Same thing here. If I were going to ever consider going back down to the Titanic, I’d go to James Cameron, or go with Robert Ballard, or go with the U.S. Navy. But that’s about it.”

On June 18, 2023, Titan, made of carbon fiber and titanium, went missing with five people on board, Rush included, as it embarked toward the Titanic roughly 13,000 feet down at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, some 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

A swift loss of communication with the vessel sparked widespread search-and-rescue efforts. The incident garnered international headlines for days and weeks as more information was uncovered about OceanGate and Rush, the way the submersible was constructed, how it was operated, and whether safety protocols were ignored for the purpose of a quicker descent.

A debris field was found by deep-sea robots on June 22, and parts of the imploded sub were dredged up and investigated in Newfoundland. On June 28, the U.S. Coast Guard, which participated in the multinational investigation, said human remains had likely been recovered from the Titan’s wreck.

Billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and British-Pakistani business owner Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, were also on board.

If the trip was in January, Bloom very likely would have been on it.

“The news broke and I was in shock because I kept thinking—I’m looking at these pictures of this father and son (Dawood and Suleman); the father is pretty much my age, the son is pretty much my son’s age,” Bloom said. “And the pictures are eerily similar to pictures of me and my son.

“You know, you stand with your son, you put your arms around each other and take a picture in front of a waterfall or a sunset or something like that. I just kept seeing our faces on their pictures. Very haunting.”

Safety ‘Flags’ Quickly Changed Minds

Bloom, a Las Vegas investor with a background in finance and banking, met Rush about two years ago through a mutual friend. For about a year, Rush told Bloom about his efforts to visit the Titanic and attempted to convince him to board his vessel.

The offer received plenty of thought from Bloom, whose son had always been fascinated by the Titanic. He thought his son would appreciate the likely once-in-a-lifetime experience, and that it could be “kind of a father-and-son thing to do” that would bring the pair closer together.

Discussions for the first six months or so between both parties didn’t lead anywhere until January 2023, around the time Rush flew to Las Vegas to spend time with Bloom and personally try to convince him.

That was when Bloom and his son began to realize the hazards of boarding such a vessel, including Sean’s viewing of the Titan’s remote-control capabilities or lack thereof. Following the implosion, much was made of the device that resembled a video game controller.

Another concern was the material that composed Titan. Bloom called a friend who’s an aerospace engineer and inquired about the use of carbon fiber for a submersible.

“He told me that if it was built by Boeing for aircraft or spacecraft, that’s built to withstand anywhere from one atmosphere at the surface to zero atmospheres in space in terms of outside pressure,” said Bloom, who’s had a pilot license for more than 25 years. “And I said we’re talking about taking it to the bottom of the North Atlantic, where it’s about 156 atmospheres of pressure. We said about 16 million pounds per square inch. [He said] there’s not a spacecraft or an aircraft that could survive.”

In March 2023, Rush told Bloom that Titan would go underwater by May. Inclement weather postponed the trip until June.

But Bloom couldn’t get past the safety concerns. He recalled a conversation the pair had while sitting in a food court at the Luxor hotel and casino.

“He told me that the industry wastes a ton of money on safety,” Bloom said. “And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Well, they over-engineer everything with a big margin beyond what they spec it for so they can charge more.’

“All kinds of flags were going off after that meeting, when he said that there’s too much money wasted on safety in the industry. And he’s telling me that it’s safer than flying helicopters, it’s safer than scuba diving and safer than crossing the street.”

So, instead of arguing more about safety, Bloom and his son bowed out by fabricating a scheduling conflict. It was the only way to avoid more safety discussions that were going nowhere.

“[Rush] was a very likable guy,” Bloom said. “You know, very charismatic and charming. I mean, I genuinely liked the guy and he was passionate about what he was doing and he believed in it. He believed in it to get onto the submarine himself.

“I describe him as he drank his own Kool-Aid. No matter what issue anyone raised, no matter what issue anybody raised, he had an answer and wouldn’t look at it objectively. So, he had lost his objectivity because he was so passionate about the project. There’s a term ‘confirmation bias,’ and he suffered from that. He knew what the answer was that he wanted.”

Bloom continued: “Anybody that gave him an opinion that contradicted his predetermined answer, he would ignore it or disregard it.”

‘Different Things Are Important Now’

As news of the missing submersible made worldwide headlines, Bloom watched with nervous anticipation. By days four or five, he pondered three possible scenarios.

One involved Titan bobbing on the surface somewhere with the hitch bolted shut from the outside, essentially leaving the passengers without any solutions and their oxygen being consumed.

Another was reaching the Titanic and something from the ship falling on the submersible, making mobility obsolete and trapping it without electricity, light, food rations and waiting for the oxygen to run out—what Bloom described as “by far the worst scenario.”

The possibility of an implosion also ran through his mind, described as probably “the most merciful way to go.”

When news ultimately broke and remnants of Titan were discovered, Bloom said he thought of Rush and how sure of himself he was in his craft—his ability to remain confident and optimistic that nothing would go wrong, even in a craft without much oversight from federal authorities that went depths below in international waters.

He also thought of his son and other friends and family.

“Different things are important to me now,” Bloom said. “My priorities are a little bit different. It’s the stop-and-smell-the-roses mentality and tomorrow-is-never-promised type of attitude. So, things that would grab my attention and take me away from the things that are really important don’t happen anymore.

“I’ve gotten closer with my son. I spend more time with my son and less time worrying about things at the office…I’m not a religious person, but at the same time you start thinking, ‘My work here is not done. There’s something more than I need to do.’ It gives you kind of a sense of purpose.”