A video, described by a Twitter user as “haunting”, shows CBS science reporter David Pogue on board the same submersible now missing on an attempted dive to view the wreckage of the Titanic on the bed of the Atlantic Ocean.
At the start of the video, recorded in the summer of 2022, Mr Pogue reads from the indemnity form he signs before boarding: “An experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and could result in physical injury disability, emotional trauma, or death.
“Where do I sign?” he quips with a smile to the camera.
The video goes on to reveal the close quarters of the vessel, and the “improvised” components making up the interior, including “running the whole thing with a game controller”.
In fact, Mr Pogue’s short dive on the sub went missing for hours, with no GPS underwater, and communication with the surface ship “somehow broke down”.
READ MORE: Titanic submarine latest updates as five people go missing on dive to shipwreck
The situation inside the sub is expected to be difficult for those on board.
Speaking of his experience, Mr Pogue said: “It’s about the size of a minivan… There’s a rudimentary toilet, which amounts to little more than a couple of ziplock bags. And of course, they all brought snacks.”
He said a lot of the interior of the vessel would “sound very janky to a lot of people — a lot of this submersible was made from off-the-shelf improvised parts.”
He went on: “For example, you control it with an XBox Game Controller. Some of the ballast are these abandoned lead pipes from construction sites and the way you ditch them is everybody gets to one side of the sub, and they roll off a shelf.”
However, he added: “The guy who built the sub told me yeah, that stuff’s all kind of janky but the important thing, like the capsule that contains the people in the air, that was co-designed with NASA and the University of Washington. The part that keeps you alive is rock solid.”
Contact with the Titan submersible was lost 1 hour 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday afternoon, according to the US Coast Guard.
OceanGate Expeditions, a company that deploys vessels for deep sea expeditions, confirmed that one of its submersibles had gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean after taking passengers to see the famous wreck.
A UK billionaire, a French submersible pilot and the CEO of a company that provides crewed submersibles are believed to be three of the people on board a missing vessel.
The vessel has up to 96 hours of oxygen on board, which would — according to David Concannon, an adviser to trip operator OceanGate — last until Thursday morning at the most.
