A CBS reporter who took a dive in the Titanic submersible said it got lost for up to 5 hours and that the mother ship shut off its internet so passengers couldn't tweet about the mishap

Matthew Loh
Updated ·3 min read
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  • The missing tourist submersible was previously lost for hours, the CBS reporter David Pogue said.

  • Pogue tried the submersible in 2022 but wasn't on the vessel when it got lost for up to five hours.

  • He said the ship's crew turned off the internet so he and others couldn't tweet about the issues.

A CBS correspondent who tried the now missing tourist submersible Titan said Tuesday that the vessel got lost for several hours during a dive in 2022.

David Pogue, who featured OceanGate Expeditions' submersible and its crew in a November CBS TV segment, said he wasn't in the vessel during this particular dive.

However, he was in the control room of the submersible's mother ship at the time, he tweeted Tuesday, adding that the crew shut off the internet on board.

"They could still send short texts to the sub, but did not know where it was," Pogue wrote. "It was quiet and very tense, and they shut off the ship's internet to prevent us from tweeting."

When reached by Insider for comment, Pogue said OceanGate told passengers that it shut off the WiFi to free up bandwidth in case the situation developed into an emergency.

"If one were cynical, one could also interpret that gesture as a way to prevent the passengers, and reporters, from tweeting about an unfolding problem," Pogue said.

"It's plausible that they wanted to clear out bandwidth," he added. "It's also plausible that they wanted to prevent bad press from unfolding in real time."

Because the submersible goes so deep underwater, the only way it can communicate with its mother ship is via text messages, according to OceanGate. And the Titan can't reliably navigate on its own, so it has to receive instructions from the ship on the surface.

The Titan can take up to 10 hours to reach the ocean floor and return, according to OceanGate's website.

After the Titan got lost in 2022, one of the people who went on that dive told CBS that the group was lost for about "two and a half hours."

But Pogue tweeted Tuesday that the Titan was lost for around five hours.

On Pogue's podcast, "Unsung Science," the reporter documented how the crew on the ship ran into communication issues with the submersible and struggled to help it navigate to the wreck of the Titanic — which passengers paid $250,000 each to see.

The occupants and pilot in the submersible were unable to find the wreck because of the confusion, Pogue said, and were underwater for more than 10 hours before being told to resurface.

It's unclear whether OceanGate ran into similar issues when the Titan disappeared on Sunday afternoon while carrying five people — including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — to the Titanic.

The submersible was about an hour and 45 minutes into its descent when it lost contact with the mother ship.

US and Canadian authorities are conducting a massive search-and-rescue effort for the five people in hopes of finding them before Thursday afternoon, when the Titan's emergency oxygen supply is expected to run out.

A representative for OceanGate told Insider that the firm couldn't provide any information on Pogue's claim.

June 21, 2023: This story was updated to reflect comment from Pogue.

Read the original article on Insider