Nearly a year on from the Titanic sub disaster, a billionaire is planning his own expedition.
Larry Connor is one of the United States most successful real estate developers, with a serious love of extreme sports including race car driving and space exploration. Now, the 74-year-old has his sights set on travelling 12,400ft to the bottom of the North Atlantic to view the Titanic wreckage in a £15 million, two-person sub called the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer.
When the Titan submersible vessel suffered a catastrophic implosion one hour and 45 minutes into its dive on June 18 last year, Stockton Rush, founder of the OceanGate company behind the mission and four paying passengers were killed. Navy commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman and British businessman and pilot Hamish Harding all lost their lives leading to an international investigation which is still ongoing.
Now property mogul Larry has teamed up with Patrick Lahey, co-founder of Triton Submarines, in a bid to became the first team to visit the sight since last year's deep-sea tragedy. "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," he told the Wall Street Journal.
The businessman has deep-sea experience, venturing in a submersible to the deepest point on the Earth's seabed, 36,000ft Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, with Patrick in 2021. "The trip was phenomenal," Mr Connor told the Dayton Daily News. "It's a different world down there." Their dive was 23,000ft deeper than where the Titanic rests.
Larry was born in Albany, New York with his property firm the Connor Group based in Dayton, Ohio. After graduating from Ohio University he bought the Orlando Computer Group and became the second largest reseller of IBM computers in Florida.
The entrepreneur then founded the Connor, Murphy & Buhrman property group before buying out his partners. The Group's assets increased from £80m to more than £3bn in two decades and he went onto co-found financial firm First Billing Services and electricity company Heartland Regional Power.
Larry is a keen philanthropist, founding the Connor Group Kids & Community Partners group to help disadvantaged young people and the Greater Dayton School private school for 'under resourced' students and Colin's Lodge for young adults with special needs.
The property magnate's fortune has allowed him to pursue a love for extreme sports, including racing cars. The 70 times race winner's victories include 2003's Petit Le Mans in Georgia, Atlanta and the Baja Trophy Truck Spec class in 2014.
In 2022, Larry became the second oldest person to enter orbit when he joined the Axiom Mission 1, the first all-private space mission, which headed to the International Space Station. Now, he has set his sights on the Titanic wreck.
"First off, I don't think that I'm a daredevil," the astronaut told Autoweek. "I think there are no old daredevils. Whether it's in racing or aerobatic competitions or going into space or going to the bottom of the ocean, I have never done anything that I thought the risks we couldn’t control or that there was unacceptable risks."
"Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade," said Larry of his exploration partner. "But we didn't have the materials and technology. You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago." According to its website, Triton Submarines offers bespoke deep dive packages for £600,000.