Canadian businessman felt "very safe" during two trips on Titanic sub (PHOTOS/VIDEOS)
As the tragic news that five people who were onboard a submersible touring the Titanic shipwreck site are believed to have died, questions continue to be raised about the safety of the trip and the company behind it.
But for a Canadian businessman who is sharing his firsthand experience taking the tour not once but twice, he says he felt incredibly safe.
Ron Toigo, who owns the WHL hockey team the Vancouver Giants as well as White Spot Restaurants and other real estate ventures, is not only among the select few who have been to the depths of the ocean but was actually on the exact submersible vessel, the Titan.
“It’s fascinating, the chance to go see the Titanic,” Toigo said in an interview Wednesday night.
He says that fascination led him to call up OceanGate and he drove down to Washington from his home in BC and met the team.
“They weren’t taking any passengers or reservations at that time, it was 2017, but they were going to be doing that so I was one of the early ones to go on the list. So when they decided they were going to take others, at first it was all scientists [but] when the opportunity presented itself [to take tourists]…I jumped on it. Had a great time, actually.”
His first trip was in 2021, but they experienced technical issues that prevented them from seeing the shipwreck. It’s believed the cost of the trip is currently US$250,000 per person, but Toigo, who did not reveal what he paid, says he understood that they needed to prioritize safety over the long-awaited look.
“In Summer 2021 OceanGate Expeditions partnered with Horizon Maritime for the inaugural expedition to survey the world’s most famous shipwreck, the RMS Titanic.” (OceanGate Expeditions/YouTube)
(OceanGate Expeditions/YouTube)
“We made it all the way to the bottom but the weights wouldn’t disperse. So we ended up spending most of the day working on having the weights disperse so we could get back to the top and by the time we got the weights off, it was too late to return,” he said.
Despite spending hours more than 10,000 feet under the sea in a vessel about the size of a minivan, he was still excited by the trip.
So, he went down again in 2022, 2.4 miles deep to see it in person and to snap a photo with the bow of the ship.
Ron Toigo poses in 2022 with the wreckage, which is located 2.4 miles down on the ocean floor off the north Atlantic coast. (OceanGate)
“A lot of things have to go right to be able to make the dive in the first place and then to make it down there and see the Titanic, it’s amazing when everything comes together, but it’s very challenging, even when everything goes right.”
“But as far as safety goes, I felt very safe. They prepare you extremely well. They prepare you to take over if they become incapacitated. They teach you how to run the thing and if… the situation completely falls apart, there’s a fail-proof system,” he said.
“It’s based on hydraulics and it’s just a pump and you pump these four, four corners where it squeezes the pin out, then the base of the sub drops off and you float to the top,” he said.
Why this didn’t work this time, Toigo says it’s difficult to know.
“That’s a big mystery to me,” he said, adding that the vessel can be pushed by currents and weather systems and hit against other things, which might have explained the noises the Canadian coast guard recorded on Wednesday.
“The banging makes me think it’s stuck somewhere and they are calling for help,” he said.
The Titan. OceanGate
He says when he was on the trip, they were prepared to be down there for five days and brought enough food, blankets, and medication in case of an emergency.
“They train you, they explain things to you, you understand fully that even… everything can go right and things can still go wrong,” he said.
He’s thinking of the crew, who he knows personally, as well as their loved ones.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who was onboard the vessel, is married to the company’s Director of Communications Wendy Rush.
“The crew has been together for probably six, seven years now and it’s a family. Literally, it is a family because the one running the control centre is Stockton’s wife, Wendy. And she’s always the worrier in the group. For her to be dealing with this now, I just feel sick for her.”
“It’s an awful situation,” he said.
On Thursday, the US Coast Guard said debris believed to be the submersible has been found about 500 metres from the bow of the famous shipwreck.
A Coast Guard spokesperson said all five occupants are believed to be dead.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet. (OceanGate | Dawood Foundation | Action Aviation | LinkedIn)
The debris was “consistent with a catastrophic loss of pressure in the chamber,” a Coast Guard representative said at a news conference.