Look inside the lost submarine Titan

You Just Sink Like a Rock for Two and a Half Hours, says Mike Reese, co-author of The Simpsons. Last year, he took a trip to the Titanic’s wreck on Titan, OceanGate’s submersible.

Passengers who wanted a glimpse of the Titanic aboard the submarine that disappeared in the North Atlantic this week made the perilous, hours-long descent to the ocean floor in a cramped craft with only one hatch.

Mike Reese, Producer and Writer at The Simpsons, aboard the spacecraft known as Titan last summer. He says passengers are required to sign a waiver that mentions the death three times on the first page.

Riess says the passengers who accompanied him on the 10-hour journey – with a price tag of $250,000 (€229,000) – were calm but excited. Sandwiches and water were available on the submarine, but he remembers being told that many of the passengers did not eat during the voyage due to excitement and that the primitive toilet on board the submarine was never used.

OceanGate Expeditions, which operates the ship, described the trip on their website as “a unique and exciting travel experience”. The company did not immediately respond to a request for more information on Tuesday.

Narrow Titan. David Pogue is a CBS reporter and former tech columnist from The Washington Post New York times The one on board called the cylindrical interior “about the size of a minivan”. Photos from OceanGate show a submarine with a metal tube-like interior, where passengers can sit on flat ground with their backs against the curved walls. There is some overhead lighting, but no chairs and little room to move or stand.

However, Reese, who previously traveled with OceanGate Expeditions to Hudson Canyon off the coast of New York City, describes the trip to the Titanic as “very relaxing.” By his own account, he fell asleep during the quiet, dimly lit landing. “You just sink like a stone for two and a half hours,” he says.

While it was on its way to the Titanic, Rees said, the submarine was derailed by underwater currents. The compass was acting “really weird”, he recalls, and the team only knew they were 500 meters from where they should have been.

However, the Titan, which was only able to spend three hours on the ocean floor, made it to the wreckage with about 20 minutes left for what Reese called a quick “photo session.” He could see the sinking ship through the hole, which he described as the window of the washerwoman.

The wreck was “indescribably majestic,” says Reese, “but it’s so dark you simply don’t know where it will be.”