Las Vegas Investor and Son Gave Up Cut-Price Seats on Doomed Titanic Submarine

A Las Vegas investor on Thursday published his account of giving up seats on the vessel believed to have suffered a “catastrophic implosion” during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic over the weekend.

Jay Bloom posted screenshots of purported text conversations between himself and Stockton Rush, the OceanGate Expeditions co-founder and CEO killed during the Titan submersible’s disastrous dive on Sunday. Bloom said he and his son were unable to take part in the excursion—despite apparently being offered a last-minute price—due to “scheduling.” Instead, Bloom says, Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son, Suleman, went in their place.

“In February, Stockton asked me and my son, Sean, to go with him on the dive to Titanic in May,” Bloom wrote in a Facebook post. “Both May dives were postponed due to weather and the dive got delayed until June 18th, the date of this trip.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.