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Las Vegas financier who turned down Titan sub dive shares texts from late CEO

By Aja Seldon
Published  June 23, 2023 3:52pm EDT
U.S.
KTVU FOX 2

'Catastrophic failure' aboard missing Titanic sub

A U.S. Navy acoustic system detected an ‘"anomaly" on Sunday that was likely the fatal implosion of a private submersible vehicle carrying five people to tour the wreckage of the Titanic, according to a senior military official.

A wealthy real estate developer from Las Vegas revealed that he turned down an invitation for him and his son to tour the Titanic wreckage on board the ill-fated OceanGate submersible.

Jay Bloom shared text messages on Facebook that he exchanged with the late OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush, who operated the Titan submersible, offering a deep-sea exploration of the Titanic wreckage to passengers.

Bloom said that in February Rush had asked for him and his son, Sean Bloom, to join him on an expedition tour of the Titanic shipwreck in the North Atlantic.

Bloom and his son couldn't go on the dive due to weather and scheduling conflicts, but Rush made an effort to convince them, even offering a discounted rate of $150,000 per person.

"So this is crazy…I got invited to go on this dive. If I accepted, I would’ve been one of the five onboard right now," Bloom said on social media.

The wealthy financier said that the seats originally intended for him and his son were given to Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.

"Tomorrow is never promised. Make the most of today," Bloom wrote.

The Dawoods were among the five victims who lost their lives in the implosion of the Titan submersible. The other victims included Rush, a British businessman named Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French navy officer and Titanic expert.