The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Conn. man who toured submersible ‘was glad to get out’
Just sitting in Titan during visit to CT was ‘claustrophobic’
A Greenwich man who explored OceanGate’s doomed Titan submersible when it passed through Connecticut two years ago described the craft as “claustrophobic.”
“I was uncomfortable just sitting in it for a few minutes,” said Sal LoBalbo, a resident of the Cos Cob section of Greenwich. “I was glad to get out.”
The Titan has garnered worldwide attention in the past week since it vanished in the northern Atlantic Ocean en route to the wreck of the Titanic. Debris found Thursday led officials to conclude the Titan had “imploded,” killing all five people on board: OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, British adventurer Hamish Harding, worldrenowned French Titanic expert and former Greenwich and Kent resident Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
Groton and Greenwich were among the communities the Titan visited when it toured the United States in late 2021 and early 2022 after its successful maiden voyage. While OceanGate’s official website appears to have been taken down, archived webpages show the Titan was scheduled to arrive in Groton on Oct. 22, 2021, and in Greenwich on Oct. 28, 2021.
During the visit to Greenwich, LoBalbo was among those who experienced the Titan’s accommodations firsthand.
LoBalbo, 51, co-owns the Stamford-based LoBalbo Brothers Auto Body with his twin brother, Al, and lives a short distance from the Greenwich Water Club. When the submersible was stationed at the River Road club in late October 2021, LoBalbo took a tour of the vessel, intrigued by the Titanic connection. Describing himself as a history enthusiast, LoBalbo noted his father was born on the same day (but not the same year) the infamous
ocean liner sank: April 15.
LoBalbo remembers the day of the tour, a cold and rainy Saturday, vividly. Divided into clusters of four, leaving room for a crew member, a line of people waited to enter the submersible. LoBalbo’s group included a father and son. When his turn came, LoBalbo climbed through the lone hatch, wriggling through an approximately 16-inch opening.
“You only had so much room to actually squeeze in,” he said. “So if you were, like, a bigger person, you wouldn’t get in there.”
Inside, the Titan’s restrictive dimensions made ani mmediate impression. Measuring 22 feet long by 9.2 feet wide and 8.3 feet high, the submersible was sos mall that none of the five passengers on its final voyage would have been able to stretch out their legs, let alone stand up or lie down. LoBalbo, who is 5-foot-8, estimated approximately 4 ½ feet separated the floor and ceiling.
“You’re sitting with your back against this round wall, and your feet are basically touching the other side, but you can’t stretch out,” LoBalbo said. “There’s nothing. There’s no frills, there’s no air conditioning, there’s no heat. There’s nothing. (Lighting) is the only thing they do have.”
The only view of the outside world came froma porthole at the end of the submersible’s nose cone. Crew hosting the tour answered questions and explained how the sub functioned, describing its composition and pointing out safety features.
LoBalbo and the other members of his group, all strangers to him, spent about five minutes inside the submersible before leaving the same way they entered. By comparison, the Titan’s final voyage to the Titanic — a journey that cost $250,000 a pop — was supposed to take around seven hours round-trip, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
“I couldn’t imagine staying in there that long,” LoBalbo said. Even before the sub’s disappearance, he said, “if someone gave up a seat … if they said, ‘Hey, you know, there’s a $250,000 ticket here, why don’t you take it?’ I’m gonna say, ‘No, thank you.’ ”
When the sub was first reported missing, the name “OceanGate” rang a bell for LoBalbo, but he knew the company owned multiple submersibles, so he didn’t immediately think the Titan was involved. It was only later, he said, that “I went, ‘Oh my God, that’s the one I was in.’ ”
The “Titanic will be talked about forever,” but “the second conversation will be about the Titan,” LoBalbo said. “So being part of history is the only positive in this situation.”
Correspondent Susie Costaregni contributed to this story.