Topics: YouTube, Titanic, World News
A YouTuber who went in the Titan submersible just days before it imploded has said he could have been a victim of the disaster had his trip not been axed.
Jake Koehler, also known as DALLYMYD on YouTube, uploaded footage of his nine-day trip on the sub following news the vessel had imploded.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood all died during the disaster.
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The vessel carrying the five passengers lost contact with its mothership on 18 June, sparking an urgent search and rescue mission involving planes, ships and sonar buoys.
The Coast Guard later confirmed that the tail cone of the Titan had been discovered around 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic wreckage, and that further debris found was 'consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber'.
The 30-minute video posted by Koehler - who has more than 13 million subscribers - showed him joining the Titan on its third mission, with both Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Stockton Rush featured in the vid.
"We're mission number three. But the first two missions they weren't able to dive down to the Titanic due to weather conditions. And, also, the Titan the submarine, I guess something happened when they were towing it back. A ghost net got wrapped around it, broke a lot of stuff," Koehler says in the video.
"They're just double-checking everything right now, making sure everything's safe."
Koehler clarified that he didn't pay to go on the sub, but was there to film content for his YouTube channel, in which he typically films himself discovering interesting items during scuba dives.
Ultimately, Rush decided to call off the dive because the vessel was having issues with functionality and two of its control pods. Weather conditions also played a part in the dive being cancelled.
Explaining the decision to crew, Rush can be heard saying something 'just didn't seem quite right' with the control system.
"That's why I called it, but mostly because we've got to find out what this control problem is - that's sort of important controlling the sub," he can be heard saying.
The YouTuber cuts the video after the comments, explaining how he cut out some parts out of respect for those who had passed.
"It could have been anything," Koehler can be heard saying in a voiceover.
"Long story short, every day they did have some problems, and we tried to fix every little thing to make sure everything was perfect for our opportunity to dive to the Titanic."
He added that at the time, the issues seemed just like an 'everyday thing' and nothing to be worried about.
While his trip to the Titanic was axed, Koehler did end up taking a test dive to a depth of about 30 feet.
"I would have been in that submarine, and my fate could have been just like the five who lost their lives just recently on mission five," he said.
