Youngest person ever to explore the Titanic wreck says he would NEVER have stepped foot on doomed Titan submersible as he reveals he lost consciousness during his historic expedition at age 13
- Sebastian Harris was just 13 when he accompanied his father G Michael Harris and a pilot on a 12,500 feet decent to see the remains of the historic ship
- He recalled the ‘inherently dangerous’ nature of the journey and said he briefly lost consciousness during the expedition
- Harris said he would not have gone on the journey on the Titan submarine which imploded and killed all five men on board as a result of enormous water pressure
The youngest person ever to explore the Titanic wreck has revealed he would never have stepped foot on the Titan.
Sebastian Harris was just 13 when he accompanied his father G Michael Harris and a pilot on a 12,500 feet descent to see the remains of the historic ship in 2005.
He recalled the ‘inherently dangerous’ nature of the journey and said he briefly lost consciousness during the expedition.
Harris added that he would not have gone on the trip on the Titan submarine which imploded and killed all five men on board as a result of enormous water pressure.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet and Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, died in the disaster on June 18.
The youngest person ever to explore the Titanic wreck has revealed he would never have stepped foot on the Titan
Sebastian Harris (left) was just 13 when he accompanied his father G Michael Harris and a pilot on a 12,500 feet decent to see the remains of the historic ship
Five men were killed in an expedition onboard the OceanGate Titan, pictured here, trying to see the wreck of the Titanic after it imploded
Polar Prince, a support vessel for the OceanGate Expeditions, which was carrying five people to explore the wreck of the sunken Titanic, returns to post in Newfoundland on Saturday
The Polar Prince had been chartered by OceanGate for the ill-fated expedition in June 2023
Harris, who earned a Guinness World Record aged 13, was on a Russian Mir II submersible with his father for a 12-hour journey to see the wreck of the Titanic.
He said he would not gone on the dangerous journey on board the Titan.
‘I can’t say that I would go on it, no,’ he told The Sun. ‘The Mir submersible I went on had several hundred dives logged before we set off.’
Harris said the tragedy should be used as teachable moment to make sure people interested in adventure tourism do their research.
‘I think the biggest takeaway from all this is anybody who is interested in this kind of tourism needs to do their due diligence and kind of take their safety into their own hands and have a very clear understanding of what they’re dealing with,’ he added.
‘There’s no blame to be had on the four individuals [aboard the Titan] in any way, shape, or form, but I think if one good thing comes from all this, it’s just like the sinking of the Titanic was super impactful on maritime safety regulations, that something similar happens here too.’
He spoke out about the issues faced on the vessel he was on and said he briefly lost consciousness during the journey.
‘During our dive, we had a small safety issue. Suddenly our oxygen levels started to drop and I fell unconscious while we were diving down,’ Harris said.
‘Fortunately my father and our pilot did not experience the same issue, otherwise it may have been fatal.
‘But these sorts of small issues can and do happen with regularity, so the certification and safety of these vehicles is so important.’
They had a near fatal moment while diving to see the Titanic.
‘What happened was they basically came up to the surface in very rough seas and the large ship, their main ship, landed on top of the submarine and it was a very bad deal,’ he added.
Harris, who earned a Guinness World Record aged 13, was on a Russian Mir II submersible with his father for a 12-hour journey to see the wreck of the Titanic
Harris highlighted the preventative measures on board the Mir for his journey to view the Titanic wreck which were absent from OceanGate’s Titan
Harris said the OceanGate tragedy should be used as teachable moment to make sure people interested in adventure tourism do their research
‘These activities are inherently dangerous. A 13-year-old doesn’t really have a sense of their own morality, so I was blissfully ignorant to a degree, but in different circumstances that could’ve ended in tragedy.’
Harris highlighted the preventative measures on board the Mir for his journey to view the Titanic wreck which were absent from OceanGate’s Titan.
He said: ‘The Mir I dove in had a dog hatch at the top of the submarine, which from my understanding is there if you need to open it at the surface and there’s enough time for two or three people to get out.
‘But what we’re dealing with in the Titan, there’s no dog hatch, you are placed in an open cylinder and then bolted into place. That isn’t consistent with submersible safety standards and it would’ve made [any potential] rescue very, very challenging.’
The Titan submersible had been missing since 9.45am on Sunday morning after being launched into the Atlantic at 8am.
A full scale rescue mission was launched to recover the missing sub and crew after it disappeared 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, as oxygen supplies in the sub continued to dwindle.
On Thursday, it was announced that, despite the frantic search to find the sub and crew, they had all perished during the descent to the wreck of the Titanic.
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) was on the Titan sub along with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition
British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding (left) and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19, died onboard the Titan
The vessel went missing on a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic which sits 12,500ft underwater and around 370 miles from Newfoundland, Canada
‘The implosion would have generated a significant, broadband sound that the sonar buoys would have picked up,’ explained Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard at a press conference.
It would have been an instant death for the men who each paid to see the famous shipwreck.
In a gut-wrenching blow for their families, experts say there is little prospect of recovering any of their remains.
‘This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there. The debris is consistent of a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.. we’ll continue to work and search the area down there – but I don’t have an answer for prospects at this time,’ Paul Hankin, a deep sea expert involved in the search, said.
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