A father and son gave up their seats on the Titan submersible just weeks before the fatal implosion after they had safety concerns about the craft.
Jay Bloom and his son Sean said they were both worried about the submersible and its ability to travel deep into the ocean ahead of the planned voyage. Their seats ultimately went to the father and son who were onboard when the vessel imploded, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood.
“I saw a lot of red flags,” Sean told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday evening after he was shown a video of tour organizer Stockton Rush walking through the submersible and its features.
Sean said he told his father he didn’t think the vessel would successfully make it that deep into the ocean.
Jay shared a text message exchange between him and Rush — the CEO of the vessel’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions — where Rush offered the spots on the vessel for the May expedition.
Rush then flew out to Las Vegas in March to try and get Jay to buy the tickets. Jay noted that Rush flew in on a two-seater experimental plane he built.
“He has a different risk appetite than I do,” Jay said.
Both Jay and Sean said Rush brushed off questions and concerns they had with the submersible.
“He had so much passion for the project that he was blinded by it,” Jay said, “He didn’t look at the things that I saw and that others saw that were problematic because it didn’t fit his narrative.”
The father and son duo said they will not try to do something like this experience ever again after they watched the news.
“All I could see when I saw that father and son was myself and my son.That could’ve been us,” Jay said.
