A former passenger on the submersible that lost contact with the surface on Sunday during a trip to the wreckage of the Titanic said the waiver he signed before his own trip mentioned death three times on its first page alone.
"You sign a massive waiver that lists one way after another that you could die on the trip. They mention death three times on page one so it's never far from your mind," Mike Reiss told the BBC.
Reiss took a trip on OceanGate Expeditions' Titan submersible in 2022, and said on Tuesday that "As I was getting onto the sub that was my thought: 'Well, this could be the end.'"
"So nobody who's in this situation was caught off guard. You all know what you are getting into," he said.
Reiss is a writer and producer based in New York, and has previous worked on the Simpsons, the BBC reported.
He told the broadcaster: "It is really exploration. It is not a vacation. It's not thrill seeking, it's not sky diving. These are explorers and travelers who want to see something."
Reiss told the BBC that he had done three dives with the company - one to the Titanic and two off the coast of New York - and communications were lost every time.
"This is not to say this is a shoddy ship or anything, it's just, this is all new technology and they're learning it as they go along. You have to just remember the early days of the space program," he said.
The US Coast Guard said the submersible lost contact an hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday, and had five people on board.
A search is underway, but experts warn that it will be complex because it is not clear where the submersible is.
The US Coast Guard said on Monday afternoon that it had around 70 to 96 hours of oxygen left, which means oxygen would likely run out by Thursday afternoon, Eastern Time.
The Titanic is around 13,000 feet below sea level - which is thousands of feet deeper than any undersea rescue has ever taken place.
Reiss told the BBC: "If it's down at the bottom, I don't know how anyone's going to be able to access it, much less bring it back up."