TV reporter describes moment he ‘almost died’ in submarine that got stuck in Titanic ruins

Similarly to Guillen, people onboard the small craft were making the trip to see the wreckage of the Titanic ship.

The journalist recalled the moment on GB News where he knew he was in a “crisis”.

He told Mark Longhurst: “We started our journey aboard a Russian research vessel.

“We were stationed above the Titanic and we dove. Everything went well when we were touring the bowel, but the Titanic split into two pieces.

“When we were moving towards the stern, I caught site of the propeller. It stood out because it is very shiny compared to the rest of the Titanic.

“Then I sensed that our sub was speeding up, which I thought was really odd. But later I heard that we were caught in a very high speed underwater current.

“That slammed us into the propeller, which was much bigger than our sub.

“At that point, I knew we were in a crisis. We had huge pieces of the Titanic raining down on us.

“It was a sense of, Houston, we have a problem.”

Guillen went on to compare his situation to the ongoing hunt for Titan, highlighting one key difference, the fact that his sub were still able to communicate with the surface.

“Im feeling a kinship with the five souls down there right now. I’m praying for their rescue”, he said.

“When we were stuck down there, our pilot was in constant communication through hydrophone.

“All day yesterday I was saying that if they had experienced a catastrophic communications failure an hour and 45 minutes into their dive, then they could have started hammering on the sub with anything hard and hydrophones would pick that up.

“I heard late last night that they had detected some subs and got really excited. It was a ray of hope, but that is only the beginning.

“By now, they will probably have sunk to the bottom, how on earth do you get something back up, intact, from two and a half miles down?”

With the temperature on the ocean floor near freezing and an estimated 40-hour oxygen supply remaining on the vessel, the occupants are at increasing risk of hypothermia or suffocation.

British billionaire Hamish Harding and four other passengers are on board the 22ft (6.7m) long OceanGate Expeditions vessel.

They are UK-based businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, reportedly together with French submersible pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

On Tuesday, OceanGate confirmed that its chief executive and founder, Stockton Rush, “is aboard the submersible as a member of the crew”.

On social media at the weekend, Mr Harding said he was “proud to finally announce” that he would be joining the mission to the wreck of the Titanic.