- A Las Vegas financier said he turned down two tickets for the Titan submersible’s fatal trip.
- Jay Bloom shared a text message exchange with Stockton Rush that highlighted safety concerns.
- Rush dismissed the concerns and offered him cut-price tickets at $150,000, texts show.
Stockton Rush, the owner of the Titan submersible that imploded killing five people on board, offered cut-price $150,000 tickets to a millionaire who turned them down after raising safety concerns.
Jay Bloom, a Las Vegas financier, published text messages on Facebook between himself and Stockton Rush, CEO of deep-sea tourism company OceanGate, who was among those killed when the vessel imploded on Sunday.
The remains of the vessel were found Thursday, after a huge search-and-rescue operation in a perilous region in the North Atlantic around 700 miles from Newfoundland.
Rush sold tickets to view the wreck of the Titanic on the Titan sub for up to $250,000.
Bloom said in a Facebook post that Rush had asked him and his son, Sean, to go on a dive to the Titanic wreck site, after two planned expeditions had been cancelled due to bad weather. MailOnline first reported the text exchange.
Before the June 18 expedition, Bloom said he expressed safety concerns to Rush about the trip. In a text, Rush tried to persuade him it was “safer than crossing the street.”
Rush said: “While there’s obviously risk it’s way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving. There hasn’t been even an injury in 35 years in a non-military subs.”
Bloom, who is a managing partner at investment firm Trimaran Capital Partners, wrote in the post: “I am sure he really believed what he was saying. But he was very wrong. He passionately believed in what he was doing.”
He said the last time he saw Rush in person was at a Titanic exhibition in Las Vegas on March 1, where Rush again tried to persuade him of the safety of the trips.
“At lunch in the Luxor food court we talked about the dive, including safety. He was absolutely convinced that it was safer than crossing the street,” wrote Bloom.
“I told him that due to scheduling we couldn’t go until next year. Our seats went to Shahzada Dawood and his 19 year old son, Suleman Dawood, two of the other three who lost their lives on this excursion (the fifth being Hamish Harding).
“One last time.. RIP Stockton and crew,” wrote Bloom.
Here are some of the texts Bloom shared between himself and Rush:
In the post, Bloom continued: “We are going to take a minute to stop and smell the roses. Tomorrow is never promised. Make the most of today.”
The Titan went missing on Sunday, triggering a huge search-and-rescue mission that ended on Thursday when deep-sea drones found fragments of the Titan, indicating that it had imploded.
After the sub went missing, reports said that experts had flagged concerns to Rush over the experimental design of the sub, and customers described to news outlets pulling out of planned trips over safety fears.
Rush had defended the design of the Titan, and claimed that regulations to ensure vessel safety hindered innovation.
“At some point, safety is just pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question,” he told CBS last year.