He explained his reason for considering the trip in the first place to GMA: "Being a sort of modern-day adventurer, [I'm] interested in pushing the boundaries of knowledge and places we can go."
"It's a chance for expedition, exploration, and adding a bit of science into the situation," he said.
Safety concerns ultimately caused him to back out.
In an interview with CNN, he said, “There seemed to be a lot of risks that were outside of my control and I didn’t like the way that they were being approached by the company.”
"They set some depth targets that they were going to send to everybody. They continuously missed them," he said.
But it seems like the condition of the vessel is the ultimate reason why he withdrew: "Then I was looking at parts of the vessel. There was an industrial casing being used as ballast. They got like an Xbox controller for steering it. The parts seemed off the shelf."
"It just seemed like [what you would do] if you wanted to figure a way to get across a river," he said.
"It didn't come across as a professional diving operation to me. So I took the decision to withdraw my deposit and to get off the program at that stage.*"
