‘Expedition Unknown’ Host Josh Gates Toured OceanGate Titan Sub in 2021 and Found It ‘Non-Functional’ | Video

Discovery’s new documentary “Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster” premiered Wednesday night, revealing that “Expedition Unknown” host Josh Gates actually toured the OceanGate Titan submersible two years before its infamous 2023 implosion — and the adventurer deemed what he found concerning.

In 2021, Gates began working on an “Expedition Unknown” episode with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who tragically died along with four other passengers on a planned deep sea expedition to tour the wreckage of the Titanic. They intended on putting a spotlight on Rush’s seemingly game-changing underwater explorations. Things did not go according to plan, however, as Gates’ first trip underwater in Rush’s sub was mired by enough technical problems that he ultimately decided to scrap the episode altogether.

“We all rely on that Spidey Sense. We all have that little voice that whispers to us. In my job, I’ve learned I have to really listen to that voice,” Gates explained over footage of himself hesitantly agreeing to being bolted inside the Titan sub with Rush. Noting that the vessel came equipped with no escape hatch of any kind, Gates told the “Implosion” team that “Stockton just didn’t see — even psychologically — the need for a way out of this sub.”

“We were in the sub for hours with Stockton,” Gates revealed later in his “Implosion” interview over video footage of his and Rush’s aborted dive in 2021. “The dive was interesting in that nothing really worked right. The sub didn’t really do anything it was asked to do.” After describing a number of the errors that the submersible experienced during his time in it, Gates concluded, “It was non-functional.”

He also recalled the conversation he had with Rush in the wake of their failed dive, including one instance when the OceanGate CEO revealed that he had ignored his sub’s carbon fiber weaknesses during one of his own deep sea descents. “Once I saw that that was where he was willing to go to get this operation up and running, a kind of fear set in for me that was so much deeper than anything I experienced while riding in the sub,” the “Expedition X” host admitted.

Gates’ very obvious concerns, as well as his decision to pass on his planned OceanGate project, were not enough to stop Rush from spearheading the fateful 2023 Titanic expedition that resulted in the deaths of French deep-sea explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani-British businessman Shahzada Dawood and the latter’s 19-year-old son, Suleman. “Implosion,” notably, features audio of the very bang that is suspected to be the implosion of the Titan sub.

It also features comments from Christine Dawood, the wife of Shahzada and mother of Suleman. “We all know who the culprit is,” she pointedly notes in the documentary. “[It] does not change anything, does it?”

“Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster” is streaming now on Max.

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