- Titan submersible passenger Paul-Henri Nargeolet was reportedly once stuck underwater for 3 days without communication.
- Nargeolet was one of five passengers who died on OceanGate's submersible bound for the Titanic.
- Christine Dawood told NYT her husband, Shahzada, one of the other passengers, was "lapping everything up" from OceanGate's presentations.
A passenger who died on OceanGate's Titan submersible bound for the Titanic had reportedly once been stuck underwater for three days without communication on a prior trip.
Christine Dawood — the wife of British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and mother of their son, 19-year-old Suleman Dawood, both of whom died on the Titan's latest expedition to the Titanic wreckage — told The New York Times that on the fateful last trip, Paul-Henri Nargeolet had given a presentation about his prior trips to the Titanic.
The 77-year-old French explorer, nicknamed "Mr. Titanic," was a veteran deep sea diver who had been on 37 successful trips to the shipwreck before embarking on OceanGate's fatal trip last month.
During his presentation, Nargeolet recalled once being "stuck down there for three days and the sub was out of communication," Christine Dawood told the Times.
Her husband wasn't fazed by the story and remained eager to go on the trip, she added.
"Oh, my god, this is so cool," she recalled him saying. "He was lapping everything up. He had this big glow on his face talking about all this nerdy stuff."
The other passengers onboard the submersible were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and British billionaire Hamish Harding.
After a days long international search effort, the US Coast Guard and OceanGate said all five passengers are believed to be dead. Coast Guard officials said their search turned up debris found near the Titanic wreckage that was "consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber" and then a "catastrophic implosion." The Coast Guard later said it had begun recovering debris and "presumed human remains" from the Titan submersible.
Besides Nargeolet, other former passengers on the Titan submersible have also recalled losing communication while on the vessel.
Mike Reiss, a writer and producer for "The Simpsons," said the Titan ran into communication issues on his trip to the Titanic with OceanGate last year.
"I took four different dives with the company, one to the Titanic and three off of New York City, and communication was lost, at least briefly, every single time," Reiss told CNN. "It just seems baked into the system. I don't blame the submarine as much as I blame deep water, but you would always lose it and come back."