[Dion]

CBS Journalist Recounts His Experience on Missing ‘Titan’ Sub: 'It Is The Darkest You Can Possibly Imagine'

Pogue shares that the conditions can be uncomfortable, however.

“But as you dive, it gets colder and colder and colder,” he says. “And so they instruct you to wear layers and bring winter jackets and the ski socks because you don't wear shoes onto the sub. It's also probably worth mentioning that there is no real toilet on board. There is a pee bottle and a set of Ziploc bags. That's basically it. And if you have to go, you go to one end of the sub and you draw a privacy curtain, and Stockton [Rush, CEO and founder of OceanGate] turns up the music loud and you go.”

Pogue continues, “So anyway, and that's relevant because on the day of, you have a sandwich and a bottle of water, and that's it. Because they don't expect this dive to take more than 10 or 12 hours. So think about the people who've been down there since Sunday. It is freezing cold. They apparently have no power because remember, we lost communication with them. So they have no light. So it's blacker than black. It is the darkest you can possibly imagine at the bottom of the sea. And they have no food or water.”

“I was petrified in the days leading up to this,” he says. “I didn't sleep at all the night before the dive. My rational brain was satisfied that this was safe because I had had an elaborate tour of the sub and all the safety precautions and all the backup equipment. But emotionally, you can't control your emotions. And I knew that I was getting on a prototype, experimental vehicle. It had, at that point, made over 20 successful journeys to the Titanic without any injuries of any kind. So my intellectual brain thought, well, ultimately it must be safe. But emotionally, it was another story.”

Pogue was also required to sign a waiver before his dive, which he says is “quite clear about all the ways that you could be permanently disabled, emotionally traumatized or killed.”

“So everybody doing this goes in with their eyes-wide-open that this is an experimental vessel,” Pogue says. “The waiver says ‘This vessel has not been inspected or certified by any government body.' So you know very well that it is a one of a kind vessel."

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