Billionaire Larry Connor Plans On Making Venture Down to Titanic Site After OceanGate Implosion

One Ohio billionaire is planning on taking a deep-sea submersible down to depths of the titanic to prove the industry is safe after the OceanGate vessel.

Real estate investor Larry Connor from Dayton, Ohio plans on taking a submersible to Titanic depths over more than 12,400 feet.

The two-person submersible venture will also be with Triton Submarines co-founder Patrick Lahey.

“I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Connor told the Wall Street Journal.

Lahey designed a $20 million vessel named the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, which Connor said can carry out the voyage repeatedly.

Connor called Lahey after the OceanGate disaster and urged him to build a better sub.

“Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade. But we didn’t have the materials and technology,” Connor said. “You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago.”

The two noted that they want to be able to prove that this journey can be made without a disaster as many saw from the Titan submersible in June.

The voyage ended up killing all five people on board, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

AT SEA - (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY â" MANDATORY CREDIT - " OCEANGATE/ HANDOUT" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) An undated photo shows tourist submersible belongs to OceanGate begins to descent at a sea. Search and rescue operations continue by US Coast Guard in Boston after a tourist submarine bound for the Titanic's wreckage site went missing off the southeastern coast of Canada. ( — AT SEA – (—-EDITORIAL USE ONLY â” MANDATORY CREDIT – ” OCEANGATE/ HANDOUT” – NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS – DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS—-) An undated photo shows tourist submersible belongs to OceanGate begins to descent at a sea. Search and rescue operations continue by US Coast Guard in Boston after a tourist submarine bound for the Titanic’s wreckage site went missing off the southeastern coast of Canada. (Photo by Ocean Gate / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The Titan was headed to the wreckage when a “catastrophic implosion” occurred on June 18th.

A few days after the tragedy, Connor called Lahey and urged him to build a better sub.

“[He said], you know, what we need to do is build a sub that can dive to [Titanic-level depths] repeatedly and safely and demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that, and that Titan was a contraption,’” Lahey told the paper.

As of now, Connor does not have a date of when the venture is taking place.

Connor will accompany Triton Submarines co-founder Patrick Lahey, who built a $20 million vessel dubbed the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer.

Lahey also spoke out when it came to the deep-sea adventure industry who accused OceanGate of questionable safe standards, calling it ‘quite predatory.”

Former employees and industry experts came forward with fears about the safety of the trip made months prior.

OceanGate opted not to certify it through credible safety groups such as the American Bureau of Shipping and Det Norske Veritas in Europe.

Rush, billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Sulaiman, died instantly when the Titan imploded under the pressure of the Atlantic Ocean.