AN industry that could have imploded after the tragedy of the Titan submersible, which killed all onboard during a pleasure trip to the fateful 1912 ocean liner the Titanic, is instead flourishing with countless billionaires keen to explore the murky depths below.

Titan, a submersible built by Stockton Rush and his company OceanGate, tragically imploded on a visit to the Titanic wreck in 2023.

The craft used unconventional materials and wasn’t independently certified, with many in the industry calling Rush reckless.

Despite the tragedy, Larry Connor, who made his fortune in property, is on a mission of his own to prove to the world that the deep dive is actually safe.

First stop – a terrifying 12,500ft dive in the icy waters 350 miles off of Newfoundland in Canada and to probably the most infamous ship wreck of them all.

Connor has teamed up with Patrick Lahey, one of the world’s top sub experts and co-founder of the, slightly confusingly named, Triton Submarines (not Titan or Trident and it is related to neither), to construct a brand new £20m submersible which wouldn’t have been possible technologically just five years ago.

“Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade. But we didn’t have the materials and technology,” Mr Connor told the Wall Street Journal.

“You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago.”

Connor told the WSJ “I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life changing if you go about it the right way,”

Those involved with the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, which is capable of diving to depths two hundred metres deeper than the Titanic, are keen to point out the differences between this and the ‘Titan contraption’.

The Triton vessel is a classed vessel meaning it is independently tested by third-party maritime societies to ensure its sea worthiness. A status that was never afforded or tested to the tragic Titan submersible whose body was made of a previously unused material of carbon fibre.

Lahey’s vessels have been to the deepest point in earth possible, the Mariana Trench, and have also ferried big names including James Cameron and Sir David Attenborough all over the world.

One of Lahey sub’s was even responsible for the first ever captured footage of the giant squid.

Triton’s director of sales, Craig Barnett, said that while there was some immediate drop off in sales after the OceanGate tragedy, the industry held its breath and is now full steam ahead again.