Victor Vescovo

He and I went to the bottom of Challenger Deep.

We set a distance record at Challenger Deep.

And then he really, really wanted to go to Titanic.

And I wasn't doing that anymore.

And I wasn't taking people down anyway.

And he really wanted to see it.

And the last phone conversation I had with him, I said, do not get in that submersible.

It is inherently dangerous.

You're playing Russian roulette getting in that thing.

And he said, well, I think it's safe enough.

I said, you're a grown man, you can take the risk, but I'm telling you don't go near it.

And he died.

Damn.

It was structurally deficient.

It was operated in an unsafe manner.

This has all been well covered by the US Coast Guard report.

It was a slapdash operation.

They didn't have enough funding to do it correctly or well.

And they had to keep going because if they ever stopped for safety, the whole show would have stopped.

And the owner of Stockton Rush, who I knew and had conversations with to stop what he was doing, he couldn't stop.