A YouTuber has had a close call - as he revealed that he was due to take a trip in the OceanGate Titan submersible just DAYS before it imploded, before his trip was axed due to "malfunctions".
Jake Koehler, known as Dallmyd online, went on a short trip in the deep-sea vessel, but was told he couldn't go further to explore the Titanic shipwreck because of "malfunctions". He had been set to dive down to the bottom of the Atlantic where the wreck of the Titanic lies, 3,800m underwater.
However, the self-proclaimed "treasure hunter's" trip was cancelled last minute due to harsh weather and communication issues. As a result, he only experienced a test dive which went down to 3,000 ft - around a quarter of the depth of the Titanic.
He said he felt like he dodged a bullet as the harsh reality that he could have dived and met the same fate as the five on board the Titan did set in. He shared a chilling video of his time onboard the craft, which even zoomed in on the now infamous video game controller used to control the submersible.
"It's crazy to think if the weather cleared up and the conditions were perfect, and Stockton looked up at me and said, 'Do you wanna go?' I would've done it, and my fate could've been just like the five who had lost their lives on that same submarine," he said.
As Jake prepared for the once-in-a-lifetime trip, trials revealed the team had started noticing issues just days before the five were killed on a dive to see the Titanic. During a routine engineering dive, one of the two computers was reportedly "acting up a bit".
Between the control issues, rough seas and winds, Jake's trip was cancelled. After a few days, engineers felt the controls were in a good enough condition to do a 3,000-foot test drive with the passengers on board.
Those on board laughed as the ship nose-dived into the depths of the ocean, but it wasn't long until communication issues with the mother ship arose.
"If the fog didn't roll in and cancel the dive, who knows, maybe we would've left that platform, and maybe we would've imploded," said Jake.
He said he feels he's dodged a bullet, and is heartbroken for the families of those who lost their lives on board - Hamish Harding, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
Jake said: "I didn't know these people too well, but they treated me very nicely, and I lost a few friends."
Tickets on the Titanic submersible experience run at around $250,000 (£196,630) per person, however Jake wrote in the video's caption that he didn't pay for his ticket as he was asked to share the experience with his 13.4 million YouTube subscribers.
The huge search effort for the missing sub was brought to a devastating conclusion after a remote operated submarine found a debris field on the ocean floor, near the bow of the Titanic.
The US Coast Guard confirmed on Thursday, June 22, that the sub had likely suffered a "catastrophic" implosion killing the five people on board almost instantaneously. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have launched an investigation, putting together a team with the "sole purpose" of determining whether a criminal investigation would be warranted.
