Jeopardy! Contestant Skipped Titanic Tour for Son’s Wedding

A beloved Jeopardy! Masters contestant revealed he recently passed on an opportunity to tour the Titanic wreckage aboard the now-missing submersible so that he could attend his son’s wedding.

In a Jeopardy! episode that aired May 9, Sam Buttrey, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and the Jeopardy! Professors Tournament 2021 champion, told host Ken Jennings that the timing of the dive and his son John’s nuptials coincided, compelling him to attend the latter.

“I have a friend who operates a company that will take you out to the wreck of the Titanic,” Buttrey explained. “You go out in a boat and then you go down in a submersible craft and tour the wreckage.”

The clip was uploaded to TikTok on Tuesday.

“It sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but through a miracle of bad timing, my son John and daughter-in-law Caitlin, were getting married that weekend. I was very happy to go there. It was a beautiful wedding, and not a shred of regret in my life,” Buttery said.

The submersible he was referring to, named the Titan, disappeared Sunday morning, about 900 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, during a voyage thousands of feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The vessel was first reported missing after it lost contact with its mothership, the Polar Prince, one hour and 45 minutes into its dive to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

OceanGate, an American company based in Everett, Wash., confirmed that it owned the missing vessel. OceanGate has been promoting survey expeditions to the wreckage beginning this summer at a reported price of more than $250,000 per customer.

Five people are onboard, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and French explorer Paul-Henry Nargolet. 

The USCG says those on board likely only have enough oxygen to last until Thursday morning.