Photo illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
When OceanGate Inc. offered Robert Mester a voyage aboard the Antipodes, a predecessor to the Titan, the privately operated five-person submersible that imploded while descending to the wreckage of the Titanic, he politely begged off the expedition.
“They were using off-the-shelf hardware from Radio Shack to operate inside, and quite frankly we’re talking about an environment that requires robust equipment that has certifications and qualifications that are established by different agencies for man-rated submersibles,” said Mester, a deepwater salvage master and ex-Marine based in Washington State. “None of the equipment that I saw inside the submersible was up to that [level], so I just chose not to go.”
Mester said he had later boarded the Titan while it was on dry land, but, as before, decided against an actual dive.