A year on from the Titan disaster, OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein vows to continue with dangerous deep sea exploration

The co-founder of the exploration company involved in the Titan submersible implosion is vowing to continue with dangerous deep-sea exploration a year-on from the disaster that horrified the world.  

The other OceanGate Expeditions co-foudners, CEO Stockton Rush was aboard his company's mini submarine when it imploded last year while on its way to explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic. 

Tourists Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, French Navy pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet and Rush, who was leading the mission, all died on the submersible after its implosion in the middle of the Atlantic on June 18, 2023.

But now, 12 months later, Guillermo Sohnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Rush in 2009, has declared that he will continue to pursue new perilous deep-sea exploration projects. 

Speaking to The Sun, Sohnlein said that he and Rush had founded OceanGate as they were 'driven by this need to explore', and 'came across this world of human submersibles, using technology to take humans into an extreme environment here on Earth, basically going underwater into the deep pressure of the ocean.'

But despite the Titan tragedy last year, he said his goals have not been dampened and instead, the disaster has inspired him to continue his efforts exploring deep oceans. 

'The exploration community is a little bit strange in that we go in knowing that there is going to be risks, we know there's going to be setbacks, and when setbacks do occur, instead of deterring...it seems to motivate explorers to continue forward and continue with their pursuit', he said. 

He added that tragedies, such as that of the Titan implosion last year, force explorers to 'reflect and have a reality check'. 

'But once you've done that, you're fully committed to continuing to go forward and that seems to be even more heightened in a perhaps macabre kind of way', he said. 

'It seems to be even more heightened when that setback leads to fatalities, because I think part of it is, the rest of the exploration community wants to make sure that the legacies of the people who lost their lives are honoured by continuing to go forward.'

'You don't want their lives to be lost in vain. You want to make sure that their sacrifice was worth whatever it was that they were trying to do.'

He continued to tell The Sun that although he left the deep-sea exploration company in 2013,  he hopes that 'within the next year or two or three, I'll be able to get back in the water and go forward with some of these expeditions'.

Sohnlein's comments come despite the fact the late Rush - a self-styled innovator, who bragged about 'breaking rules' - was heavily criticised for having disregarded safety standards. 

Although his maverick approach to innovation earned him comparisons with visionaries like Elon Musk, he had caused concern among his peers in the industry.

So, when the Titan imploded, colleagues and friends of the CEO said it as a tragedy they had been warning would happen for years, with some having begged Rush not to plough ahead.

But instead of heeding the warnings, Rush shrugged them off, even suggesting that to question the Titan's safety credentials was 'personally insulting' to him as he branded claims he was 'going to kill someone' as 'baseless'.

Sohnlein said that Rush still been alive, he would have been frustrated to know that OceanGate has suspended all operations.