One of the first enthusiasts who turned to OceanGate, diving the same submarine to see the wreck of the Titanic, described the experience as a “kamikaze operation”. Arthur Loibl, a 61-year-old retired German businessman and adventurer, said he first had the idea of seeing the wreck of the Titanic during a trip to the South Pole in 2016.
At the time, a Russian company was offering dives for half a million dollars, but when the American OceanGate announced its operation the following year, it jumped at the opportunity, paying $110,000 for a dive in 2019 which, however, was failed as the first submarine did not survive the tests.
Two years later he embarked on the successful venture together with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet (both currently aboard the Titan) and two British men.
Two years ago he paid to view the wreck of the Titanic on the now missing Titan submarine. But that journey after some time he called it a “suicide mission”. Arthur Loibl, 60, dived at the wreck site of the Atlantic in August 2021 and says he was “incredibly lucky” to survive. Speaking to German newspaper Bild, Loibl recalls that the first submarine they tried didn’t work. «Some parts came off and the mission started five hours late due to electrical problems». This, Loibl suspects, could be the cause of the disappearance of the Titan again. “At the time it was a suicide mission”, his words to Bild.
“Imagine a tube a few meters long with a metal plate for the floor. You can’t stand, you can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting next to each other or on top of each other,” she recalled, explaining that during the 2.5-hour descent and ascent the lights were turned off to save energy and the only illumination came from a fluorescent stick. “I was a bit naive, looking back it was a kamikaze operation,” she specified.