British Presenter “Ditched Plan To Film Dive, After OceanGate Sub Deemed Not Fit For Purpose”
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A British TV presenter has revealed that, like Discovery+ explorer Josh Gates, he considered making a show in which he travelled to the wreck of the Titanic in an OceanGate sub – before rejecting the plan as “unsafe.”
The Sun reports that Ross Kemp – a veteran of daredevil documentary-making over the last two decades – had planned to make the show last summer, before pulling out.
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His agent Jonathan Shalit told the paper:
“Their team checked out this OceanGate submersible and pulled out of using it, as it was simply not considered safe or fit for purpose.”
The Sun quoted a TV insider who added: “When provisional enquiries were made with OceanGate, the question was asked: ‘How much training does he need to go down in the submersible to the Titanic?’ And the answer was: ‘None at all.’
“The company was looked at initially because they were a well-known organisation, but after [production company] Atlantic started asking questions, any plans quickly unravelled.”
Josh Gates said yesterday that he had rejected the chance to film on Titan, after safety checks “did not perform well.”
This follows the tragic news this week that five men, three of whom were British, had died aboard the mini-sub Titan, with experts pronouncing the course of the accident to be a “catastrophic implosion.” Debris of the shattered capsule has been found.
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