Former passenger describes what it's like inside missing Titanic sub

WASHINGTON — Looking back on his own 2021 dive to the Titanic, an early OceanGate passenger says one must be “a little bit crazy.”

Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he conceived the idea to see the Titanic while on a 2016 trip to the South Pole. He paid $110,000 for a dive in 2019, but the first submersible didn’t survive testing. Loibl went two years later.

“Imagine a metal tube, a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand, you can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” Loibl said. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”

The dive, which was repeatedly delayed to fix problems, took 10 1/2 hours, he said.

Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.

“I was a bit naive, looking back now,” said Loibl.

How deep is the Titanic?

Even if the Titan is located in the North Atlantic, it could be nearly impossible to reach if it is stuck on the ocean floor at roughly 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) near the Titanic's wreckage.

The U.S. Navy is sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels” in the hopes that the Titan will be found.

The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (more than 9,000 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,215 kilograms), the navy said on its website.

The Flyaway has a traction winch as well as a system that prevents “high-snap tension” from occurring in the lift line.