JANET STREET-PORTER: After Titan, it's time to end extreme tourism

Don’t think that the Titan disaster was a one-off.
According to marine experts, the huge growth in ‘extreme tourism’ means that we will see more deaths, چربی سوز جی سی not fewer. And at what cost?My heart goes out to the family and friends of the five men killed on their sightseeing trip to the Titanic which set off last Sunday, Father’s Day.

On board the sub Titan was Stockton Rush, owner of expeditions, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a distinguished underwater pilot, and three wealthy tourists (a dad and his anxious 19-year-old son) who’d paid £195,000 for a 9-hour trip to see the most famous wreck in the world.After their vessel went missing late on Sunday, an international rescue operation was hastily assembled, coordinated by the US CoastGuard.

Boats and planes rushed highly specialised equipment into the area south of St John in Newfoundland. Experts came from , the US and .

Billions of pounds’ worth of submersibles, underwater , deep ocean salvage systems and their operators, not to mention doctors and medical teams, all frantically searching for signs of life.Many of these marine experts normally work on underwater cabling or scientific expeditions.

Now they were rescuing tourists, a situation which would have been unthinkable a decade ago.With the discovery yesterday of five pieces of debris from Titan, we know that those onboard are sadly dead. Submersible pilot Randy Holt, right, communicates with the support boat as he and Stockton Rush, left, CEO and Co-Founder of OceanGate, dive in the company’s submersible The Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions to explore the wreckage of the sunken SS Titanic, which imploded on SundayTen years ago, wealthy tourists sought their thrills shooting rare animals in Africa, climbing Everest, K2, or navigating the upper reaches of the Amazon. But dangerous adventures are a heady drug, and these days ‘the ultimate experience’ is the goal for top end tourists chasing their dreams.Rich men and women want to go to the moon courtesy of Elon Musk or Richard Branson. They want to meet protected tribes in South America or Papua New Guinea.

They crave life-changing memories gleaned from dangerous confrontations, not the kind the rest of us get on a sunny beach or in a quiet cottage. Janet Street-PorterIn short, they are thrill seekers, and when things go wrong, it is ordinary workers like the oil industry divers, the naval medics, tanker pilots and marine engineers who have to come and rescue these modern day ‘explorers’.To be honest, the term ‘explorer’ is misleading, because they are (generally) not experts researching something that will benefit mankind.

They are holiday makers, not Christopher Columbus or Jacques Cousteau.Unfortunately, the wreck of the Titanic has replaced shooting a white Tiger or a rare panther as the ultimate thrill seekers’ goal. Ever since the liner sank in1912, taking 1500 passengers and crew to their final resting place 12,500 feet below the sea off the coast of Newfoundland, there have been books, movies and conspiracy theories about what might have caused the tragedy.

The most famous depiction of that fateful night in 1912 is a gloriously over-the-top movie starring Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio, with Celine Dion belting out the theme tune My Heart Will Go On.Titanic movie director James Cameron, a keen diver, has visited the site around 33 times.
He owns a company which makes submersibles and is passionate about marine exploration. Cameron says he would have advised passengers against taking a trip on Titan because the vessel had not undergone sufficient testing.When modern ‘exploration’ is run by commercial (ie for profit) companies who do not undergo stringent financial scrutiny or technical checks, there must be all sorts of risks. Rich men and women want to go to the moon courtesy of Elon Musk (pictured) or Richard Branson British multi-millionaire Richard Branson points at other hot air balloons flying over the city of MarrakeshOceanGate had planned trips to the Titanic since 2018, and undertaken dives in 2021, and 2022.

Although the body of the vessel was made of Titanium and Carbon Fibre to withstand the extreme pressure at depths or 13,000 feet, many of the parts — like handles and lights — were off-the-shelf components and it was steered by an adapted off-the-shelf Logitech game controller which can be bought on Amazon for just £42!