Parks Stephenson, the Titanic explorer who worked with director James Cameron on his classic romance drama, worries Sunday’s disappearance of a tourist submersible on an expedition to the wreckage “has the potential to be a major tragedy.”
“No matter what you may read in the coming hours, all that is truly known at this time is that communications with the submersible have been lost and that is unusual enough to warrant the most serious consideration,” Stephenson wrote in a Facebook post Monday.
“I am most concerned about the souls aboard, whose identities have not yet been made public,” he added at the time, though the five passengers have since been identified.
Stephenson and Cameron, 68, journeyed over 2 miles beneath the ocean surface to the wreckage of the Titanic in 2005.
The expert worked as the technical adviser on the set of the 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet blockbuster and has reportedly visited the wreckage several other times, including as recently as 2019.
Stephenson declined to speak with the media, writing in a subsequent Facebook post Monday: “This is an evolving situation and I want to be respectful to everyone who might be affected by what has the potential to be a major tragedy. Likewise, I will not engage in comments to my posts regarding this subject.”
He continued: “Please keep the well being of all those potentially affected in your thoughts. They wouldn’t be out there if it wasn’t for the public demand for information regarding this wreck.”
OceanGate’s Titan submersible takes passengers 12,500 feet underwater to observe the 1912 shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean.
The vehicle was equipped with a four-day emergency supply of oxygen when it vanished Sunday 370 miles from Newfoundland in Canada.
Capt. Jamie Frederick of the US Coast Guard told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the missing sub had about 41 hours of breathable oxygen left.
Rear Admiral John Mauger, who is helping coordinate the search, said it could be stuck.
“We don’t have equipment onsite that can do a survey of the bottom,” Mauger said Tuesday, per the Mirror. “There is a lot of debris, so locating it will be difficult. Right now, we’re focused on trying to locate it.”
If rescue crews are unable to locate the Titan before oxygen runs out, it would be the deepest recovery mission in history.
Titanic expedition leader G. Michael Harris told Fox News early Tuesday that he fears tragedy has struck the lost sub.
The five people on board have been identified as British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 49, and his son, Suleman Dawood, 19.
“Hey, we’re headed out tomorrow, it looks good, the weather’s been bad so they’ve been waiting for this,” Harding wrote in a chilling last text Saturday to his friend and retired NASA astronaut Col. Terry Virts.
Meanwhile, a former OceanGate employee warned of “quality control and safety” problems as far back as 2018, according to a resurfaced lawsuit.
The worker, who claims he was fired for raising concerns, said more tests were needed to ensure the sub’s hull could withstand the rigors of its expeditions.