British billionaire Hamish Harding was so desperate to see the Titanic wreck he pushed past his concerns over the safety of the Titan submersible and decided it was ‘safe enough’, a friend who warned him against the trip has revealed.

Mr Harding and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet were among the passengers who tragically lost their lives when the sub ‘imploded’ this week, and now their friend has spoken out to reveal they had concerns over the OceanGate Expeditions vessel. 

Ocean explorer Victor Vescovo said the two passengers asked for his opinion on whether they should go, and that he told them ‘I wouldn’t get in that sub’.

When asked whether he had spoken to them prior to the trip, Mr Vescovo told Sky News: ‘Absolutely, there was a common point of discussion within the community about the design risks of the submersible that they were going on.

‘We all in the community had concerns and unfortunately those turned out to be true,’ he added.

Mr Vescovo described the implosion of the vessel as being a tragic ‘outlier’ and described Titan as a ‘different submersible and a different team’ who ‘pushed the boundaries of safety too far’.

He added that the majority of operators ‘adhered to extremely strict safety protocols and standards and testing and we religiously follow’.

‘But this was a different submersible and a different team and I think they thought they were advancing the state of the art and doing some interesting things, but I think they pushed the boundaries of safety too far and that’s been evidenced by what happened’.

It comes after emails reportedly revealed that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush dismissed warnings from a leading deep sea exploration specialist that he was potentially putting his clients at risk.

Rob McCallum urged Rush – who perished on the Titan along with four others – to stop using the sub until an independent body assessed it, The BBC reports.

According to the emails, he told Rush he was ‘mirroring that famous cry’ of the Titanic’s builders: ‘She is unsinkable’.

Rush, a self-proclaimed innovator, knocked back the concerns and explained he was ‘tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation’.

The email exchange reportedly only ended when Oceangate’s lawyers threatened legal action. 

Five passengers inside Titan were killed instantly when the submersible suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ just 1,600ft from the bow of the wrecked ocean liner, the US Coast Guard announced yesterday. 

They included Harding, Nargeolet and Rush,as well as UK-based Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

The group is believed to perished on Sunday morning, as the vessel losing contact with its mothership, MV Polar Prince, an hour and 45 minutes into its two hour descent.

French mariner Nargeolet, 77, was a highly-experienced diver and widely considered to be a ‘leading authority’ on the Titanic.

In chilling comments he made to the Irish Examiner in 2019, Nargeolet said: ‘If you are 11 meters or 11 kilometers down, if something bad happens, the result is the same.

‘When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realize that something is happening, so it’s just not a problem.’ 

He led several expeditions to the wreckage of the cruiser off the coast of Newfoundland and was on at least 35 dives to the wreckage site. 

His step-son today paid tribute to the French sub pilot, describing him as ‘fearless’ and a ‘warm burst of energy’. 

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk