Physicist calls for ‘pause’ on all tourist trips to Titanic wreckage

‘I know what it feels like to be buried alive in a tin can at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean’

A physicist has called for an end to all the tourist voyages to the Titanic wreckage after four days of frantic search for the Titan submersible ended and experts said all five people on board died in an implosion.

Michael Guillen, a former Harvard University physics instructor who himself had a near-death experience near the Titanic wreckage, said the ocean is a “merciless beast” and the Titanic’s wreckage is a “sacred ground” where all activities should cease.

"Certainly, we need to stop, pause all trips to the Titanic, I believe, and figure out, you know, what kind of restrictions should we place,” he said in an interview with GB News.

"This is not a joyride. This is a serious business. The ocean is a merciless beast, really. It’s ready to swallow you up."

Mr Guillen went into the depths of the Atlantic aboard a Russian scientific research vessel in 2000 when he was a correspondent with the ABC network.

He became the first TV correspondent to report from the Titanic wreckage site but the excitement soon ended when the sub got caught up in a "very strong underwater current" and stuck in the massive propeller of the doomed iconic passenger liner.

The emotional physicist said it broke his heart to see what the five people on the missing OceanGate submersible must have gone through.

This photo provided by OceanGate Expeditions shows a submersible vessel named Titan used to visit the wreckage site of the Titanic (AP)

"I went through it. I know what it feels like to be buried alive in a tin can at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s terrifying – terrifying,” he said.

Mr Guillen’s warning came as rescue teams from the United States, Canada, and France gathered in a remote region of the Atlantic Ocean to search for OceanGate’s submersible.

Passengers onboard Titan - Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henry Nargeolet, Stockton Rush, and Hamish Harding

Mr Guillen said we “may never know what went wrong” with the vessel and lashed out at OceanGate which has come under scanner for the safety issues with the sub.

He said the sub was “designed primarily for tourism” unlike the vessel he boarded, which he said was a “serious vessel created by serious-minded people”.

“Keep in mind that it took 73 years – 73 years – for us to discover the wreck of the Titanic, and it’s huge,” he said.

“What are the odds that we will ever find this this tiny craft that is like a mosquito in size by comparison if we cannot locate it?”