NEW YORK — (NEW YORK) -- As the search for the missing Titanic tour submersible and its five passengers continues, the dangers of venturing 13,000 feet down to the ocean floor to see the wreckage of the infamous sunken ship are coming to light. A former ABC News science editor knows them all too well after a voyage to the wreckage more than 20 years ago went awry.
In September 2000, Michael Guillen, a trained physicist and then-science editor for ABC News, was invited on an expedition run by a group of Russians to be the first journalist in history to make the journey to report at the wreckage site in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The submersible started the tour at the bow of the ship, making its way to the stern, toward the propeller that had broken into two pieces when the ship sank in April 1912. As Guillen admired the contrast between the shiny brass propeller and the gray, crumbling ruins surrounding it, the submersible got caught in a high-speed underwater current and slammed right into the propeller blades, he said.
While there was another submersible in the region, Guillen knew that the likelihood of that vessel being able to pull them out was very low, especially given the hostile environment: pitch-black darkness and pressure that could kill a human instantly.And then he came to the realization that there was no way out, he said. Terrified he was going to die, he thought of his wife, Laurel, and possibly never seeing her again.
Guillen then turned to the pilot, a former MiG pilot, who said in a low-pitched Russian accent,"No problem."They later learned that the icy current had wedged the submersible into the blades of the Titanic's giant propeller. The passengers on board the missing Titan include British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, renowned Titanic researcher Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, the operator of the tour.
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