Titanic tourist sub goes missing in Atlantic Ocean, June 2023 #3

[imstilla.grandma]

A voyage data recorder stores audio from the ship’s bridge. “The content of those voice recordings could be useful in our investigation,” Fox said.

“There’s no suspicion of criminal activity per se, but the RCMP is taking initial steps to assess whether or not we will go down that road,” RCMP Superintendent Kent Osmond said at a Saturday press briefing, adding the agency investigates all reportable offshore deaths.

“There are teams on site that are still going to be collecting data for the next few days, weeks, maybe months, and it’s going to be a long time before we know exactly what happened down there,” Sohnlein told CNN on Friday. “So I would encourage us to hold off on speculation until we have more data to go on.”

And when submersible expert Karl Stanley was aboard the Titan for an underseas excursion off the coast of the Bahamas in April 2019, he felt there was something wrong with the vessel when loud noises were heard and sent an email to Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, sounding the alarm on suspected defects.

“What we heard, in my opinion … sounded like a flaw/defect in one area being acted on by the tremendous pressures and being crushed/damaged,” Stanley wrote in the email, a copy of which has been obtained by CNN.

“From the intensity of the sounds, the fact that they never totally stopped at depth, and the fact that there were sounds at about 300 feet that indicated a relaxing of stored energy /would indicate that there is an area of the hull that is breaking down/ getting spongy,” Stanley continued.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/25/americas/submersible-titanic-implosion-deaths-sunday/index.html

 

[BUF]

As businesses and institutions have tried to distance themselves from the manufacturing and testing of the Titan since the implosion happened …
has anyone been able to find out exactly who built it?

 

[ch_13]

From the NL Maritime facebook page...photos of the Atlantic Merlin towing the Titan's now-empty launching platform back to port in St. John's.

 

[10ofRods]

As businesses and institutions have tried to distance themselves from the manufacturing and testing of the Titan since the implosion happened …
has anyone been able to find out exactly who built it?

OceanGate built it. CEO Rush designed and built it. He had help from dozens of different people, both paid and volunteers. Repairs and new amendments/fixes to the Titan and its logistics were ongoing. The passengers were named "mission specialists" and were considered crew. Many past passengers report having helped with aspects of repair or maintenance to the Titan.

At any rate, OceanGate itself built the Titan, took out at least one patent. There is no other entity that I know of involved in the manufacture of this submersible and no other person responsible that I know of than CEO Rush.

IMO.

 

[10ofRods]

It was there 42 minutes ago….upthread.

Yep, it's back. From what's on the Wiki-Talk page, it may or may not stick (now they're arguing about whether someone who merely modified an existing invention in some way should be on the page; several contributors say that Rush's relationship to submersibles is the same as a race car driver's relationship to a car - not an inventor, just souping things up, basically).

So interesting!

 

[10ofRods]

Prior to last weekend, nobody had died or even been seriously injured traveling down to see Titanic. By contrast, many have been seriously injured or killed in helicopters or when scuba diving. Strictly speaking, SR wasn't lying.

The problem is that he believed the safety of his own "innovative" submersible was comparable to the safety of earlier subs that had followed tried and tested guidelines. It's like comparing a Saturn V to fireworks strapped on a barrel.

He was as close to lying as a scientist or engineer can get, though. Millions of helicopter hours have been flown and are flying right now. The way to ascertain safety is not by making 13 trips (some of which had to be aborted for safety reasons), as Rush did.

The sample sizes are completely incomparable. People died from smoking cigarettes before all the data was collected and most lung experts suspected it was a cause of many lung diseases, even before there was proof. If CEO Rush were honest, he'd use examples with comparable sample sizes.

If CEO Rush was in any way a legitimate expert, he would have known that.

(Helicopters have been around since 1942 and there are currently more than 60,000 of them, at least half in daily or weekly operation).

IMO. There were 2 Titans (one was in dry dock for repairs). This Titan had apparently made up to 13 voyages (looks to me as if this particular Titan had made less than 13 - with possible hull problems reported by at least one passenger - posted just above).

Simple not enough data to compare to helicopters or cars or SCUBA, IMO. A very salesman-like thing to say, IMO.

 

[ch_13]

OceanGate built it. CEO Rush designed and built it. He had help from dozens of different people, both paid and volunteers. Repairs and new amendments/fixes to the Titan and its logistics were ongoing. The passengers were named "mission specialists" and were considered crew. Many past passengers report having helped with aspects of repair or maintenance to the Titan.

At any rate, OceanGate itself built the Titan, took out at least one patent. There is no other entity that I know of involved in the manufacture of this submersible and no other person responsible that I know of than CEO Rush.

IMO.

According to the below article, the hull was originally constructed by Spencer Composites in 2018, and then repaired or rebuilt by two companies, Electroimpact and Janicki Industries. But I assume this was contract work and the companies were just implementing the designs of Rush and not making any guarantees about the vessel's structural integrity.

A whistleblower raised safety concerns about OceanGate’s submersible in 2018. Then he was fired. | TechCrunch

The director of marine operations at OceanGate was fired after raising concerns about its first-of-a-kind carbon fiber hull.

techcrunch.com

 

[ch_13]

He was as close to lying as a scientist or engineer can get, though. Millions of helicopters have flown and are flying right now. The way to ascertain safety is not by making 13 trips (some of which had to be aborted for safety reasons), as Rush did.

The sample sizes are completely incomparable. People died from smoking cigarettes before all the data was collected and most lung experts suspected it was a cause of many lung diseases, even before there was proof. If CEO Rush were honest, he'd use examples with comparable sample sizes.

If CEO Rush was in any way a legitimate expert, he would have known that.

(Helicopters have been around since 1942 and there are currently more than 60,000 of them, at least half in daily or weekly operation).

IMO. There were 2 Titans (one was in dry dock for repairs). This Titan had apparently made up to 13 voyages (looks to me as if this particular Titan had made less than 13 - with possible hull problems reported by at least one passenger - posted just above).

Simple not enough data to compare to helicopters or cars or SCUBA, IMO. A very salesman-like thing to say, IMO.

Yes, relying on a small sample size to assert safety is a huge fallacy.

After one crash (Air France 4590 in July 2000) the Concorde went from being the world's safest passenger aircraft to the world's most dangerous passenger aircraft. Simply because there were so few of them and it made far fewer flights compared to other planes that a single crash could upend all the statistics.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Five people have just lost their lives and to start talking about insurance, all the rescue efforts and the cost can seem pretty heartless — but the thing is, at the end of the day, there are costs," said Arun Upneja, dean of Boston University's School of Hospitality Administration and a researcher on tourism.

"There are many people who are going to say, 'Why should the society spend money on the rescue effort if (these people) are wealthy enough to be able to ... engage in these risky activities?'"

That question is gaining attention as very wealthy travelers in search of singular adventures spend big to scale peaks, sail across oceans and blast off for space.

"We cannot attribute a monetary value to Search and Rescue cases, as the Coast Guard does not associate cost with saving a life," the agency said.

While the Coast Guard's cost for the mission is likely to run into the millions of dollars, it is generally prohibited by federal law from collecting reimbursement related to any search or rescue service, said Stephen Koerting, a U.S. attorney in Maine who specializes in maritime law.

But that does not resolve the larger issue of whether wealthy travelers or companies should bear responsibility to the public and governments for exposing themselves to such risk.

"This is one of the most difficult questions to attempt to find an answer for," said Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union, noting scrutiny of government-funded rescues dating back to British billionaire Richard Branson's hot air balloon exploits in the 1990s.

When wealthy adventurers take huge risks, who should foot bill for rescue attempts?

In recent days, the massive hunt for a submersible vehicle lost during a north Atlantic descent to explore the wreckage of the Titanic has refocused attention on the conundrum: who should pay for the sweeping search.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[10ofRods]

According to the below article, the hull was originally constructed by Spencer Composites in 2018, and then repaired or rebuilt by two companies, Electroimpact and Janicki Industries. But I assume this was contract work and the companies were just implementing the designs of Rush and not making any guarantees about the vessel's structural integrity.

A whistleblower raised safety concerns about OceanGate’s submersible in 2018. Then he was fired. | TechCrunch

The director of marine operations at OceanGate was fired after raising concerns about its first-of-a-kind carbon fiber hull.

techcrunch.com

I assume it was just contract work as well. If we're going to get into the weeds of where Rush sourced all his materials, then obviously he got the carbon fiber from Boeing (but Boeing didn't build the craft). He got help with the Cyclops from University of Washington, but U of W did not build the Cyclops; OceanGate built the Cyclops (and he has University of Washington listed as a supporter/collaborator in the "research" of the Foundation, which is overstating the matter IMO).

I don't see how any hull manufacturer could make any warrantees about the eventual methods in which the hull was going to be used. However, I would expect that someone could have inspected the components and figured out whether they were capable of going to 13,000 feet. We know he installed a window that wasn't rated to that capacity - the hull manufacturer can't be responsible for that.

Would be interesting to know if Rush availed himself of any of the testing services that Spencer offers in their consulting work (my bet is that he did not or he'd have put that news on his website).

IMO.

 

[MsMarple]

I was thinking about the Duke engineer’s comment that a composite hull had already been tested and rejected so Rush’s claim of innovation wasn’t true.

A little research turned up an interesting article about another submersible which used a similar hull design. I won’t go into the specifics though I’m posting a link but in that project the goal was to build a submersible to travel to five of the deepest underwater areas in the world.

Testing showed that the sub was only suitable for a single dive at high pressure so the project using it was abandoned.

I don’t know what, if any modifications Rush made to the Titan’s hull in order to conduct multiple dives but hopefully we’ll learn more after the investigation is complete.

In my non expert opinion Rush turned to a lighter hull in order to accommodate more passengers. I think the maximum in other submersibles is three.

Unfortunately, by cutting corners and refusing testing he ended up building a Pinto and tried to convince people it was a Bentley. MOO

DeepFlight Challenger - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

OceanGate - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Underwater survival expert reveals OceanGate's biggest 'red flags'

Rachel Lance, a Duke University biomedical engineer, said that the carbon fibre hull which OceanGate's sub used was known to be unsuitable.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[somequestions]

OT

I got on a helicopter (twice) without knowing that the bolt holding the rotor on was known as the Jesus nut!

Wont do that again.

IMO, you assume because they are in business, they are legit/safe.

Bet those *tourists* did not think twice about it because of his charisma and even the fact of having waivers made it seem legit. SMH

ETA: when the owner is also going, what could go wrong?

We are now viewing this with 20/20 hindsight.

Hindsight makes a huge difference.

This is correct. If we go to the carnival, we assume the people in charge of inspecting the rides have done their job. If we go to an amusement park, we assume state regulators make sure the rollercoasters and other rides are safe. We trust doctors because most of us are not doctors. They are professionals.

I did not know anything about the materials used in making submersibles before this accident. I never knew about how carbon fiber was different from steel and titanium. I cannot say whether or not I would have gotten on board, but being able to say you went on a submersible seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The only thing, if I had known, that would have made me certainly not get on board was if I found out about the OSHA complaint and the viewing port window not even being rated to a third of the depth. But even that would have required research and maybe the CEO would have assured me that his own company had done their own testing to make sure it was safe.

Hindsight really does make a difference.

 

[citizen_sleuth]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1673020974860468226

 

[ifindedout]

It’s not there. His name is not on the list. Did they take it down?

It's back up now. Going by the Talk page (scroll waaaaay down to near the bottom), looks like there is/was an edit war.
IMO SR unequivocally belongs on the page, though a good case can be made that Thomas Andrews does not. MOO

 

[somequestions]

When investigators figure out what caused the accident, I wonder what the answer will be. It will probably take a long time.

If it was the carbon fiber hull that caused the accident, then at least CEO Stockton Rush proved that carbon fiber hulls cannot be used more than once or twice although people say he should already have known that. It was still wrong to take passengers, but in his mind, he may have thought everything was ok because Titan had already dived to the Titanic before.

If it was the acrylic viewing port, then the similarities to the Titanic disaster are going to be very strange. The one thing I remember about the Titanic disaster from the 1997 movie was how cold it was. Mr. Harding, one of the people on the submersible, said that Newfoundland had its worst winter in 40 years before going on the trip. I wonder if the acrylic viewport window got so cold at depth that maybe it started to crack or the whole piece contracted creating spider cracks in the window that everyone on board would have seen.

I think the viewport window will be a focus of the investigation to make sure it is not what caused the accident. The sad thing would be that it could have been tested. Does Oceangate have the testing documents? Why did the manufacturer not want to certify that part to depth?

Maybe when the investigation is over, the investigators will find that it was not only pressure, but colder water that caused structural failure. The irony is that the steel used to make the Titanic became very brittle in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean before it hit the iceberg.

Or maybe the answer is that it was something else completely that no one expected or has suggested. We have to wait for the experienced investigators to figure out the answer.

 

[fred&edna]

If I wanted an adventure on a submersible, I'd opt for something like this...

Vinpearl Submarine Nha Trang

As the first and only tourist submarine in Vietnam, with its uniquely designed hull in 100% transparent acrylic, Vinpearl Submarine Nha Trang offers visitors an unique experience of infinity vision and being fully immersed in the deep and magical space of the ocean.

vinpearl.com

which has this

https://tritonsubs.com/wp-content/uploads/Triton-Submarines-Safety-Fact-Sheet.pdf

But, of course, this doesn't go to the Titanic. I guess the Titanic wreckage is the big draw.

 

[10ofRods]

Yes, relying on a small sample size to assert safety is a huge fallacy.

After one crash (Air France 4590 in July 2000) the Concorde went from being the world's safest passenger aircraft to the world's most dangerous passenger aircraft. Simply because there were so few of them and it made far fewer flights compared to other planes that a single crash could upend all the statistics.

And it wasn't even the Concorde's fault! Apparently, they attribute this tragic disaster to improper care of the runway - the Concorde ran over a sharp strip of metal on take-off, which blew a tire, which flew into a fuel take, which exploded. I guess fuel take design could also be part of it, but really, it was that metal on the runway.

I'm starting to see the Titan incident as much more like expeditions up Everest, at this point. High expense tourism. Vaguely regulated (I'm sure the titanium components will turn out to be...titanium, it's not like this was a total scam, the intent really was to provide tourists with snapshots of the Titanic). We know that the concessions on Everest can be less than...safety conscious.

There's no way to have real oversight in this kind of tourist environment. Even if the Titan had been licensed as operable in some way, there would have needed to be ongoing checks and rechecks using standards not developed purely by Rush himself. There ought to have been a way of barring the use of a submersible that didn't undergo routine checks for stress after each use. I'm guessing that real tourist submersibles, as opposed to research ones, get inspected but have no clue how often that happens or how that's regulated.

Don't think I'll be doing another submersible ride any time soon. I look for Canada to take this seriously (as the nation who has legal jurisdiction over the port of origin for this particular voyage). I don't see how anyone could do further Titanic tourism without sailing out of Newfoundland, although I suppose it could be done from New England as well.

IMO

 

[Anthony96]

I cried when thay said all have been lost rip to all 5

 

[fred&edna]

Rescue insurance?!

Global Rescue – Medical & Security Evacuation, Field Rescue, Intelligence Reporting

www.globalrescue.com

as mentioned here:

Dan Richards is the CEO of Global Rescue, a membership club that he describes as like breakdown cover but for your body. You pay an annual fee, and if you ever get yourself hopelessly stuck while doing extreme activities, his team comes and gets you.

Mr Richards has been in the business for almost two decades and says he has never seen it grow so fast as it has in the last couple of years - something he puts down to Covid.

The deadly rise of 'extreme tourism'

These so-called 'danger tourists' are swapping Portugal for Pyongyang and the Caribbean with Chernobyl, driving an industry that is set to be worth a trillion dollars by 2030.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

He was as close to lying as a scientist or engineer can get, though. Millions of helicopter hours have been flown and are flying right now. The way to ascertain safety is not by making 13 trips (some of which had to be aborted for safety reasons), as Rush did.

The sample sizes are completely incomparable. People died from smoking cigarettes before all the data was collected and most lung experts suspected it was a cause of many lung diseases, even before there was proof. If CEO Rush were honest, he'd use examples with comparable sample sizes.

If CEO Rush was in any way a legitimate expert, he would have known that.

(Helicopters have been around since 1942 and there are currently more than 60,000 of them, at least half in daily or weekly operation).

IMO. There were 2 Titans (one was in dry dock for repairs). This Titan had apparently made up to 13 voyages (looks to me as if this particular Titan had made less than 13 - with possible hull problems reported by at least one passenger - posted just above).

Simple not enough data to compare to helicopters or cars or SCUBA, IMO. A very salesman-like thing to say, IMO.

I don't think we disagree, not really, but we're looking at it from a different perspective.

Submarines and submersibles have been around for hundreds of years, and much like helicopters, they're a tested technology with thousands operating safely and successfully; serious incidents and death are thankfully very rare, and on hundreds of dives to Titanic such a thing had never happened until last weekend.

In Stockton Rush's text to Jay Bloom his exact words were, "There hasn't been even an injury for 35 years in non-military subs."

He wasn't specifically saying Titan was safer than helicopters and scuba diving (though it is of course implied), but that diving in a submersible in general is safer. And I'm not at all convinced he was wrong. Submarines and submersibles have proven to be remarkably safe, all things considered.

The problem, which we both absolutely agree on and which I've always agreed on, is that Titan was never comparable to other submersibles to begin with. IMO SR really believed he had built a submersible that was every bit as good and reliable as others that had gone before... and he was tragically wrong.