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A US journalist fought back tears on Good Morning Britain as he recalled his own experience during a submarine excursion to visit and report from the Titanic wreck, in which a near-fatal accident almost occurred.
A search and rescue mission is underway after a tourist submarine carrying five passengers to the wreck of the Titanic went missing in the north Atlantic Ocean.
Among those missing on the OceanGate Expeditions submersible Titan are British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, with reports claiming they have enough oxygen in the submarine until Thursday midday.
During Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain, journalist and author Dr Michael Guillen spoke to Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley about his own similar experience, growing emotional as he did.
The US TV reporter recalled a trip to see the wreck while working for ABC News in 2000, becoming the first TV correspondent to report from the site.
During the trip, the submarine he was in was wedged beneath the stern wreck, leaving him fearing his life.
Talking about the ‘horror’ and ‘panic’ of the accident on Good Morning Britain, Dr Guillen said: ‘I started ticking off all the various ways in which I could imagine we could be rescued, but it was pretty quick that I realised I hit a brick wall, and couldn’t think of a way, any viable or realistic way that we could be rescued.
Dr Guillen was in a near-fatal accident during a trip to visit the Titanic wreck (Picture: ITV)
He recalled the ‘panic’ during the terrifying experience (Picture: ITV)
‘I think that’s when a resignation set in and that’s when that voice in my head, and I’ll never ever forget those words that came into my head: “This is house it’s going to end for you.”
‘I thought it ironic, because I’d been to the North Pole, the South Pole, I’d covered the Persian Gulf War, almost was killed with bullets flying all over the place, but I thought, this is it.
‘This is how its going to end, and what flashed through my mind, and I’ll never forget it, is I thought, “My gosh, I’m going to join all the souls who lost their lives down here, I’m going to be one of them. I’m going to lay and rest for eternity. My body is going to be down here with the rest of them who went down with the Titanic.”
‘And then I had a sense of peace and that I can’t explain.’
Tearing up, he elsewhere added: ‘I think the drama for me began when we had finished our tour, everything had gone well, we had a moment of silence to honour the people who lost their lives down there, because remember this is not just a wreck, this is a sacred gravesite where people lost their lives.
‘Just to think, I was there, I could see the Titanic was as close to me as my face is to my hand right now, and as we were departing from the bow everything was going fantastically, we travelled across what’s called the debris field where all the stuff spilled out of the Titanic when it broke in two.’
He went on to say during their trip they had been ‘heading towards the stern’ during the ‘second half’ of their journey.
‘What I noticed right away was how shiny the propeller was, it was huge compared to the size of our little submarine, and I was just captivated by it,’ Dr Guillen said.
He added: ‘Then I sensed that we were speeding up, and I thought to myself, that’s odd, we should be slowing down, we’re approaching the propeller.’
Thankfully, Dr Guillen and those with him on the trip survived after the operator of their submarine managed to free it from where it was stuck under the propeller.
Recalling his own experience, he continued that he was ‘honoured’ despite his ‘deathly fear of water’, as he became the first TV journalist to report from the wreck.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1.
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‘I thought, this is it.’