OceanGate Titan sub co-founder is organising a trip to one of the world’s deepest sinkholes

The co-founder of OceanGate, who created the Titan submersible that last year imploded on a trip to the Titanic killing all on board, is organising a trip to a sinkhole that has never previously been explored. Guillermo Söhnlein co-founded OceanGate with Stockton Rush, who was piloting the Titan submersible when it imploded last year.

Guillermo Söhnlein left OceanGate in 2013, and then founded another company dealing with underwater exploration called Blue Marble Exploration. The upcoming expedition the company is after is a trip down the 663-feet unexplored sinkhole in the Bahamas known as Dean’s Blue Hole.

Whilst divers and free divers have explored the area before, Blue Marble Exploration will be doing the first manned submersible trip down to the bottom, where the crew “will be operating in complete darkness.” As per the Blue Marble Exploration website, the company says “Locals believe that Dean’s is a portal to hell and the Devil himself lurks in the black depths.

Dean’s Blue Sinkhole. Via Christian Afonso on Flickr.

“Each year, several people drown in Dean’s due to a variety of misfortunes. We fully expect to find human remains and prepare to handle those situations with proper respect for the families.”

Not exactly making me want to sign up. And that’s before you even see the fee the expedition would set you back. Blue Marble Exploration has not yet stated if the price will be in the same ballpark as OceanGate’s $250,000 price tag for the Titan mission to the Titanic, but you can sign up on the “Join the expedition” section of its website.

Guillermo Söhnlein, the organiser of the sinkhole trip, gave several interviews last year when the OceanGate Titan submersible imploded killing all five on board just an hour and 45 minutes into its decent to the Titanic. Speaking to Reuters, Söhnlein said “Let’s figure out what went wrong, let’s learn lessons and let’s get down there again.

“If anything, what we’re feeling is an even stronger imperative to continue doing this kind of exploration work. I think it’s important for humanity, and it’s probably the best way to honour the five crew members who gave up their lives doing something that they loved.”

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