Who is Guillermo Sohnlein? OceanGate co-founder hits back at James Cameron over Titan submersible safety concerns

OceanGate's co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein defended his company following the implosion of the Titan submersible that claimed the lives of five passengers. CEO Stockton Rush was also one of the passengers and while the criticism towards the company has continued, Guillermo said that the submersible went through several tests before it went on the dive on June 18.

OceanGate was established in 2009 and in 2013, Guillermo exited the company. Following the implosion of the submersible, several experts criticized the company and questioned the safety of the mission, including the director of Titanic, James Cameron.

Speaking to BBC, the director said that he had doubts about the technology that was being used and that he would have never entered the vessel. He alleged that the OceanGate "didn't get certified because they knew they wouldn't pass."

Guillermo Sohnlein appeared on the Today show on BBC Radio 4 on June 23, 2023, and defended OceanGate, saying that people are ignoring the fact that the submersible was developed over 14 years.

"I think one of the issues that keeps coming up is everyone keeps equating certification with safety and are ignoring the 14 years of development of the Titan sub," he said.

He continued:

"Any expert who weighs on this, including Mr Cameron, will also admit that they were not there for the design of the sub, for the engineering of the sub, for the building of the sub and certainly not for the rigorous test program the sub went through."

---

Guillermo Sohnlein gained recognition as an entrepreneur over the years

Guillermo Sohnlein has established several companies over the years (Image via @gsohnlein/Instagram)

Guillermo Sohnlein went to St. Francis High School and later went to the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California Hastings College of the Law. He then joined the United States Marine Corps during the 90s as a Captain.

He has founded different companies like Milo and the Association of Space Entrepreneurs (IASE). IASE is a nonprofit organization that aims to help entrepreneurs establish ventures and start-ups related to aerospace. Guillermo Sohnlein later established an angel investor group called Space Angels Network.

He co-founded OceanGate with Stockton Rush in 2009, before he started the Ocean Exploration Committee of the Marine Technology Society in 2010. The 57-year-old also co-founded ExploreOcean, which conducts outreach programs on submersibles. He then started a global project called the Sea-Space Initiative in 2011, which aims to unite the ocean and space industries.

Guillermo Sohnlein established another company called Blue Marble Exploration in 2013, which offered expeditions to explore oceans in submersibles.

---

"I felt in my bones what had happened" - James Cameron's thoughts on the Titan submersible

James Cameron spoke about his thoughts when he discovered that the vessel had lost all lost communication.

"I felt in my bones what had happened. For the sub's electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously – sub's gone," he said.

Cameron added and said that he got in touch with a few people in the submersible community and found out that the passengers were at 3,500 meters, heading for the bottom at 3,800 meters. He also mentioned that since the sub lost communication and navigation as well, he believed an "extreme catastrophic event" had taken place, like an implosion.

"Their comms were lost, and navigation was lost – and I said instantly, you can't lose comms and navigation together without an extreme catastrophic event or high, highly energetic catastrophic event. And the first thing that popped to mind was an implosion," he continued.

A former employee of OceanGate, David Lochridge, earlier questioned the safety of the submersible, following which he was fired from the company.