Stories of daredevils who have taken the 12,100-foot descent down to the bottom of the ocean to view the Titanic are coming to the surface and detailing their experience of being seconds away from death.
More than 20 years ago, Michael Guillen was the first correspondent to travel in a Russian submarine to the Titanic wreckage site in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Canada.
Guillen, also a physicist, survived a chillingly similar ordeal to those currently lost on the submersible. On TikTok, he revealed that a horrifying incident while under the wreckage left him close to dying.
In September 2000, Guillen, 63, departed from Halifax, Canada to make the dive down to the bottom.
“When the Titanic sank, it broke into two pieces, the bow section went straight down. The stern did a somersault,” Guillen explained. “And so it exposed it when it landed on the bottom, it exposed the propeller. So when we toured the bow, there was no problem. There was a moment of silence we had just for the sake of the victims there.”
Guillen revealed that seeing the wreckage up close was very “somber” and “very haunting.”
What happened next would stick with him for the rest of his life.
Guillen said he noticed a giant propeller. Comparing it to the size of the submarine, he said it was a “mosquito” against the blades of the propeller.
“I remarked to myself how shiny it was, because it’s got brass, and so it doesn’t corrode the way the rest of the Titanic has. And as that happened, as I was just dazzled by this giant propeller, I noticed we were speeding up and that seemed strange to me, I thought we should be slowing down.”
Guillen said they ended up being caught up in a very high speed underwater current that forced their submarine to slam right into the blades.
“[We] became trapped behind the blades of the propeller,” Guillen revealed. “And not only did we feel the collision, but also a huge piece of the Titanic started falling down on us. And we knew we were in trouble.”
Guillen quickly panicked and began to think there was really no way out of this.
“This voice in my head actually said to me, and I’ll never forget the words, ‘this is how it’s going to end for you.'”
“And for me, as a correspondent who had been to the North Pole, the South Pole, covered the Persian Gulf War and other places where I was in harm’s way, had always managed to survive it,” Guillen said. “For me that was that was a bitter pill to swallow. I thought of my wife, I’d never see her again … I don’t like recalling that experience.”
“It took me the better part of a half hour or more, as our pilot tried to jog us out, and he wasn’t succeeding. I finally really hit a brick wall and realize, no, this is the end of it.”
An hour later, they were able to wiggle out of the trap.
“By the grace of God, and by the skill of our pilot, who was a former MiG pilot, he was able to finally extricate us after the better part of an hour.”
But Guillen said that after that hour, they still had to think about getting back to the surface, which would take more than two hours.
“It’s an experience that I’ll never forget my life and my heart goes out to these people who are lost,” Guillen said, choking up. “Just I’m just so sick to my stomach. to think of those poor people down there.”
The submersive is carrying British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, along with French Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 73, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61.
The vessel has been missing since Sunday and has fewer than 41 hours of breathable oxygen left, the US Coast Guard reported Tuesday.