In the wake of the confirmed loss of the Titan submersible and its five passengers, Josh Gates, the world-renowned explorer and host of Discovery’s Expedition Unknown, has broken his silence on why he turned down a chance to film the ill-fated vessel in 2021.

Speaking with Piers Morgan, a visibly shaken Gates described his “Shakedown dive” with Ocean Gate CEO Stockton Rush in the Puget Sound as the moment he realized the platform’s risks were simply “impossible to measure.”

“A Unique Vehicle” With No Benchmark

Gates traveled to Ocean Gate’s Washington headquarters just months before the company began its commercial voyages to the Titanic. His goal was to evaluate the sub for a television special, but after spending several hours inside the craft with Rush, Gates felt a growing sense of unease.

“It is such a unique vehicle; it is a one-off,” Gates explained. “Because of that, there is nothing to compare it to. For me, it represented, frankly, just too much risk.”

While Gates expressed admiration for Stockton Rush’s “vision and spirit of innovation,” he noted that the very things that made Titan novel—its carbon-fiber hull and unconventional engineering—made it a platform where “acceptable risk” was difficult to calculate.

Defending the “Courage of Explorers”

As news of the debris field reached the public, social media was flooded with criticism questioning why billionaires and experts would gamble their lives on such a voyage. Gates, however, issued a passionate defense of the passengers, including his fellow Explorers Club member, British billionaire Hamish Harding.

“I’ve been sickened by so many people commenting, ‘Why would you do this?’” Gates said. “Titanic has fascinated the world since the night she sank. Shipwrecks are time capsules; they connect us to the past in an intimate way.”

Gates emphasized that for experts like P.H. Nargeolet—who had devoted his life to the wreck—and adventurers like Harding, the mission wasn’t a “stunt” but a pursuit of deep personal meaning. Harding, a world-record holder who had already visited the Mariana Trench and circumnavigated the globe via the poles, was described by Gates as an “extraordinary individual” whose bones were built for exploration.

“Commendable Aims, Difficult Questions”

During the broadcast, Piers Morgan compared the Titan disaster to the Titanic itself, citing director James Cameron’s observation that both captains ignored repeated warnings about the dangers ahead.

Gates acknowledged that while today is a day for mourning, the industry will soon face a reckoning. “There are still really important questions to ask about [Stockton’s] calculations of risk,” Gates admitted. “I think that he was trying to create a new platform that could open up the depths of the ocean to more people. That is a commendable, noble aim. But there are big questions about how he got there.”

The Legacy of the Abyss

As the search concludes and the investigation begins, Gates remains “heartbroken” for the families, particularly given his personal ties to the crew. For the Expedition Unknown host, the tragedy serves as a grim reminder of the thin line between a breakthrough and a disaster.

“It takes an enormous amount of determination, courage, and fortitude to take any trip inside a submersible,” Gates concluded. “There should be a huge amount of admiration for those people.”