Ex-Titanic sub passengers describe it as a ‘kamikaze operation’

A former Titanic tourist sub passenger has told US media he signed a waiver that "mentions death three times on the first page".

It comes as a major race against time is unfolding, with rescuers hoping to find Titan's five passengers before it's too late.

Mike Reiss told ABC News he's taken four trips on OceanGate submersibles — and contact's been lost with the host ship every time.

That includes a trip Reiss, a former showrunner for the Simpsons, took to the wreck of the Titanic.

"Every time they lost communication — that seems to be just something baked into the system," he told the broadcaster.

"It is always in the back of your head that this is dangerous, and any small problem will turn into a major catastrophe."

With no GPS, it took his crew three hours to find the Titanic despite landing about 500m from the famous wreck.

"Even I was able to steer and navigate the sub for a while," he claimed.

The sub's oxygen is set to run out later today.

Other previous passengers have shared Reiss' concerns.

"You have to be a little bit crazy to do this sort of thing," said Arthur Loibl, a 61-year-old retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. He was one of the submersible company's first customers, diving to the Titanic site two years ago.

Loibl told The Associated Press that he first had the idea of seeing the Titanic wreckage while on a trip to the South Pole in 2016.

At the time, a Russian company was offering dives for half a million US dollars.

After Washington state-based OceanGate announced its own operation a year later, he jumped at the chance, paying for a dive in 2019 that fell through when the first submersible didn't survive testing.

Two years later he went on a voyage that was successful, along with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet and two men from England.

During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, Loibl said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.

The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours.

Loibl described Rush as a tinkerer who tried to make do with what was available to carry out the dives, but in hindsight, he said, "it was a bit dubious".

"I was a bit naive, looking back now," Loibl said. "It was a kamikaze operation."