Mike Reiss took extra paper with him to the underside of the North Atlantic Ocean in case the deep-sea submersible didn’t return to the surface getting a glimpse of the sunken Titanic last yr. He desired to be certain he had something on which to write down some final jokes.
Reiss – an Emmy Award-winning writer-producer for “The Simpsons” – descended 13,000 feet with 4 others inside OceanGate Expedition’s Titan submersible to see the historic wreckage.
“He knew this was very dangerous,” Reiss’ wife, Denise, told The Post Tuesday. “Even in probably the most dire situations, he has a joke.”
Reiss returned safely – but now the carbon-fiber submersible is missing. On board are OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a marine archaeologist who has made dozens of dives to the positioning; British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding; and British-Pakistani father Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman, scions of a business dynasty.
Only a small handful of individuals have been to the underside within the vessel, amongst them Reiss. In July last yr the Reisses paid greater than $100,000 – they declined to say exactly how much – to be a part of the expedition.
They flew from home in Latest York to St. John’s, Newfoundland, then set sail on board the MV Polar Prince, steaming south for 400 miles.
There was loads of time to contemplate the hazards of such a precarious trip to the underside of the ocean.
“Death is at all times lurking, it’s at all times at the back of your mind,” Reiss, 63, told The Post. “Before you even get on the boat, there’s a protracted, long waiver that mentions death 3 times on page one.”
The Polar Prince stopped roughly above the Titanic’s wreckage, where it has sat since April 15, 1912, seen by only a number of hundred people. More people have been in space than have set eyes on it.
The couple were each because of dive to the wreckage, but Denise tested positive for COVID, leaving her on the support vessel, watching her husband’s descent.
Reiss received no specialized training before stepping into the Titan except for the way to get right into a survival suit.
He and his 4 fellow divers were bolted into the submersible from the surface. They brought cameras, then sat on the ground contained in the curved hold just 22 feet long.
“It’s like in the event you took a minivan and took all of the seats out, that’s the quantity of space you might have,” Reiss said. “It’s kind of beautifully designed inside, it feels kind of like a waiting room at a spa, quiet and cozy.”
Then they sank “like a stone,” gently falling for 2 hours and half-hour.
“The sub could be very, quite simple,” the veteran television author told The Post. “You mainly push it within the water and it sinks like a stone. So, it hits bottom and then you definitely sail around and also you’re kind of powered by engines that seem like desktop fans.”
It was so peaceful that Reiss fell asleep. “People talk in regards to the excitement, the thrills, and, ‘Were you scared?’” Reiss continued. “And it’s like, ‘I feel asleep.’”
The 23,000-pound vessel is steered by a video game controller, Reiss said. He didn’t feel unsafe through the dive.
“So, it’s super easy technology, which could be very calming,” he joked. “It’s not high-tech.”
Once they hit the ocean floor, Reiss said the pilot realized the submersible was just 500 yards away from the predominant wreckage of the Titanic.
“But we didn’t know where and the compass stopped working,” Reiss said. “We spent about 90 minutes just hunting around, trying to seek out the Titanic but it surely’s just so dark down there.”
By the point the submersible “stumbled” on the wreckage site, the five had only 20 minutes to stare upon the tragic liner.
“That’s just the luck of the draw. That’s what you bought. And also you’re on the mercy of weather, and water and technical problems.”
The five crowded across the tiny porthole, only barely larger than a washer door, taking turns to see the awesome sight of the Titanic, lit up by the Titan’s lights.
“I mostly felt like I used to be seeing a celeb in person,” Mike said of seeing the Titanic wreckage. “My thought was, ‘Wow, she looks just she does in the photographs.’”
Passengers who took a visit to the positioning the next day had greater than three hours on the ocean floor, Reiss said.
Reiss didn’t feel cramped or claustrophobic contained in the vessel – which he praised as a “masterpiece of design.”
But then got here the long ascent, with a dramatic ending.
The “beautiful and sleek” Titan, looking like something straight out of “Star Wars,” encountered buoyancy issues last summer.
To repair the problem, crews strapped huge pieces of “high-tech Styrofoam” to the vessel – a “makeshift” fix to the issue, Reiss said.
Because the Titan resurfaced, a winch on the Polar Prince lifted it straight up, Reiss said.
“When the winch grabbed us, the sub went vertical suddenly and all of us five people plunked to the underside,” Reiss said.
“All of our computers, our food, our water, every thing just fell on top of us. And we hung that way for some time.”
Reiss’ wife watched every minute of her husband’s eight hours within the Titan from the Polar Prince.
“I used to be very concerned on a regular basis, after all,” she said. “We weren’t imagined to be separated, so I had these terrible feelings on what if something happened. I had that fear. I watched every minute of the dive.”
The couple had previously considered booking one other OceanGate tour so Denise could see the wreckage, because although each are fascinated by the Titanic, actually seeing it had really been on her bucket list.
“It had never been my dream, it was my wife’s dream,” he said
Reiss said he didn’t feel unsafe through the deep-sea dive, but wouldn’t take the danger again.
“It’s definitely being invented because it goes along,” he said. “I don’t wish to disparage it, but it surely jogs my memory of the early days of aviation or the space program, where lots of thought goes into it after which they find an issue.
“The concept they may very well be just sitting there lost and waiting for time to expire,” he said of the five trapped adventurers. “That’s a really scary thought.”
Reiss said he empathized with relatives of the five missing people as rescuers, including US Coast Guard vessels, scoured the Atlantic Ocean Tuesday about 435 miles south of Newfoundland.
“It’s a really tiny vessel in a really big ocean,” he said. “It’s built to go where no other vessel to go, so if it’s stuck on the underside of the ocean, I can’t foresee a way out.”
