TV writer says vessel was ‘plagued with issues’

Mike Reiss, a writer and producer on The Simpsons, took a trip on OceanGate Expedition’s Titan submersible to see the wreckage of the Titanic with his wife in 2022.

During each of the three dives he did aboard the Titan sub last year, Reiss told The U.S. Sun the vessel ran into various communication and navigation issues, including getting lost near the bow of the Titanic.

And although he described the excursion as a “beautiful experience”, he said he was aware at all times that catastrophe or death could strike at any moment.

“I’ve taken three different dives with the company and every time communication was an issue,” said Reiss, 63.

“This is a new technology, and they’re very much learning as they go with it but [communication] is probably the weakest link in the chain, and think in two of the three cases when I was there they were able to re-establish communication, but that seems to be the hardest part of this thing.

“We lost communication on the Titanic dive, then we got them back, but it was crackly – almost like something from a World War II movie – and then the problem would be literally communicating with the people on the surface about where we were.”