OceanGate seemed willing to expose paying customers to Titanic sub conditions that it would shield media and celebrities from, says journalist

• A journalist was due to go on OceanGate's Titan submersible this year but his trip was cancelled.
• He said they cancelled trips if multiple factors were met, including weather and who was on board.

OceanGate seemed willing to allow its paying customers to dive on its Titan submersible in conditions that it wouldn't go ahead with if a journalist or celebrity was on board, according to a travel editor whose own trip was cancelled earlier this year.

Travel Weekly editor-in-chief Arnie Weissmann was set to dive down to the wreck of the Titanic in the submersible in May, just one month before it imploded on a later trip, killing all five people on board.

He wrote about his experience, where he made it to the mothership and even inside the Titan, but his trip was ultimately called off, with the company citing wind, swells, and fog as the reasons.

He said OceanGate had protocols that meant trips would automatically be cancelled if a number of certain conditions were met. These conditions included "wind more than 10 knots, a team member who was new to staff or a celebrity or member of media on the dive," he said.

"That last one gave me pause," he added. "If the decision were one factor shy of the no-go limit but someone other than me, a journalist, were coming aboard, would they go forward with a dive that would otherwise be canceled solely because a reporter was present?" he wrote.

OceanGate charged customers $250,000 a person, though at least one would-be passenger said he was offered a discounted ticket for $150,000.

Weissmann said he also questioned if the weather was the only reason his trip was cancelled. "I sometimes wondered whether the submersible's readiness was also an unspoken, but important, consideration," he said.

OceanGate did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment sent outside of business hours.

But Weissmann said he was overall "impressed by what appeared to be a risk-averse operation."

In his article, Weissmann described the preparations for dives and his interactions with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who was one of the five people killed on board last month.

He said there was "a sense that care was being taken" by the OceanGate team, and described Rush's rule that workers should pause for five minutes after doing any complex repairs to "think about everything they did, make sure it was done correctly and confirm that they weren't missing anything."

He said he also spoke to diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a Titanic expert, who died on the Titan.

Nargeolet said he wasn't worried about the submersible getting damaged at the depths of the Titanic, saying with a smile that under that pressure "you'd be dead before you knew there was a problem," Weissmann said.

Weissmann previously said that Rush told him OceanGate got the carbon fiber used to make the Titan "at a big discount from Boeing because it was past its shelf life for use in airplanes."

OceanGate declined to comment on Weissmann's claims to Insider. Boeing first declined to comment to Insider, but later said the company "has found no record of any sale of composite material to OceanGate or its CEO."

The Titan had made at least three successful trips to the Titanic before its implosion. But other would-be passengers said they also had trips delayed, while others described aborted attempts over issues like lost communications.

The disaster has shed light on previous warnings about the safety of the Titan submersible.

But Rush and OceanGate repeatedly said the vessel was safe, and in old interviews Rush dismissed many safety regulations as overbearing rules that get in the way of innovating.

Correction: July 5, 2023 — An earlier version of this article misspelled Weissmann's name in some instances. It is spelled Weissmann, not Weissman.