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

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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 2
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.
I do not trust carnival rides. They are known for being taken apart and put together by people who may or may not be competent.
 
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.
Do you think engineers at NASA were at least consulted?

The media has reported this to be the case.

 
This article discusses to what extent OceanGate collaborated with the institutions such as NASA and University of Washington Applied Physics. The latter assisted with CYCLOPS and that was shallow-water implementation. It had nothing at all to do with the Titan.

 
In a post earlier an article was shared where he actually went to a potential customer that was hesitant to go on this trip and ultimately that customer decided against it. It seems to me (and I could be wrong) this man was attempting to fill the trip and even offered a discounted price. IF someone is hesitant for any reason, why was he pushing it? I'd say flying out to meet with a potential customer to persuade them is being rather pushy. So I'd ask again how forthcoming was he with the risks? The customer with a son that backed out posted on FB and shared the text exchanges he had with Stockton and he said, "while there are risks, it's safer than riding in a helicopter or scuba diving" So when someone is expressing fear of it being dangerous that is his response? I think it's possible he was not forthcoming in what he shared about risks. It might be listed in a waiver, but if he's saying it's safer than riding in a helicopter or scuba diving then what factual data does he have to say that? Seems he's trying to sway people. I'm sure that father/son are thanking their lucky stars they declined.
I think ultimately things are still 'buyer beware', but at the same time, nothing is guaranteed 100% safe.

You choose a reputable zip line company with good reviews, not some dodgy guy who 's put up a hand-written sign beside his driveway. You consider carefully whether you really want to rent a scooter in Bankok...etc.

Every decision one makes is a choice, that will have a positive or negative outcome. You have to choose who to trust, what will fulfill your desires vs the risk, etc.
I am in a limbo here but let us wait for the official conclusions. Rush made one big mistake during this voyage, and this is what i hold against him, but I can't call him a grifter.

To be frank, any expeditionary-type discovery is probably made by the same type of people, and led by the same type of people. We consider Captain Scott a hero, well aware that he was driven by ambition, financial circumstances and yearning for the fame of being the first. To add, he had an obstinate character and was later accused of poor planning as well. Still, a hero.

Take Roald Amundsen, his nemesis. His memory about an explorer's book:
"I read them with a fervid fascination which has shaped the whole course of my life".

This "fervid fascination" is probably what describes all such characters, including Rush. Amundsen was not always straightforward about his goals. He planned his Antarctic expedition better than most, probably due to his experience from living with the Inuits. But, he died as he lived, and it, too, was for fame. Legends were told about his abrasive and competitive nature.

Perhaps it is is best described here. (I read Nobile's memoirs too, so, in general, close).


In short, if I were asked to guess if Rush were driven by the money or the fame + "fervid fascination", I'd say, the latter. I wouldn't be surprised if he invested way more into these endeavors. Ambitious, obstinate, overly relying on himself to the degree that he ended up dying himself and taking four other people with him - doesn't it sound familiar? Weren't most of the famed explorers the same?

Over centuries, how many of them died, ruined ships, airplanes and took others with them? But then one would achieve, return back, and the mankind would discover the New World, or get a better map of the Earth.

So this is what I think of it today. It's the type we are dealing with. And all their constructions were often held together with spit because of financial constraints. Today, the materials are more flimsy, the trend is towards lightweight, and the obvious is seen sooner.
I agree, history is full of such people (seemingly, usually men). Napolean, for example, who lead the French army into a disasterous attempt to invade Russia.

The ancient Greeks called it hubris and recognized it was usually followed by nemesis. They made up a story to characterize it: Icarus was given wings made of wax and feathers, but in spite of warnings, couldn't resist flying so high that the sun melted the wax and he plunged to earth.

I still believe 'character is destiny". To expect a Napolean or an Icarus to behave like a cautious government bureaucrat is to set yourself up for disappointment: they won't because they can't. I'm sure some people told Captain Cook he should just stay home.

JMO
 
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Do you think engineers at NASA were at least consulted?

The media has reported this to be the case.

I think the word "consult" is the wrong word. Via the Space Act Agreement (mentioned in your link), NASA makes public to all sectors much of their engineering research (written publications). Some are of course classified, but if not classified, they are publicly available in writing. Yes, we can say that we "consult the academic literature) but I think that Rush's having read these publications is NOT the same as what the MSM implies (that actual NASA engineers actually heard about the Titan and specifically consulted on it).

I do not believe that happened and will not believe it until those very engineers (who are in some hot water now if in fact they "lent" their expertise to Rush and specifically consulted (for free or not) with him over the Titan design.

I believe that someone in NASA spoken to Rush during the building of the Cyclops not the Titan. I seriously doubt that the head of NASA officially went on record ("speaking for NASA") saying their engineers were doing this (and I do wonder if their engineers had to be anonymous or retired because...I wasn't aware that NASA engineers took on consulting projects in the private sector).

The original source of this information was, of course, Rush himself (and even he never says "Space Act Agreement" (as if there were a special agreement just between OceanGate and NASA - the Space Act was signed into law after the two houses agreed upon it - it does not authorize or mention contractual agreement or help between independent engineering contractors and NASA's engineers - at all; it's about the right of the public to certain information - and resulted in NASA publishing what it had on carbon fiber, which Rush then read and used in his own manner. That's how I read his actual statement here:


Pay attention to how carefully this article is constructed. The astronaut never says anything about helping design Titan for OceanGate. Instead, he talks about how beautiful the oceans look from up in space and how now he's a passenger-in-training to go on the Titan. He went as a passenger. I doubt NASA paid for his seat, but wish a reporter would ask someone high up in NASA to respond to that.

Then NASA is mentioned again (because it helped select the people who went on the Virgin Galactic. So a man who studies planetary science gets selected by NASA to go on a private space voyage, and now the man hopes to go on the Titan.

These are not clues that make me think the MSM article is getting it right. It's not surprising that Rush read articles that NASA had on carbon fiber as materials. It is overstatement, in my view, to say that NASA "helped to design" the Titan.

IMO.
 
I’d be interested to hear from a lawyer or someone with legal knowledge about whether the waiver that oceangate had passengers sign would hold up in court? The wording seems to absolve pretty much anyone and everyone remotely connected to Oceangate of all reaponsibility right down to ‘clients, partners and subcontractors’. It seems whoever created this waiver was very careful to list every possible person that could be held responsible if anything went wrong.

However I don’t think the part about negligence should hold up IMO if Oceangate were negligent then the responsibility should fall on them regardless of signed waivers.
It’s kind of like signing a consent form for surgery and then dying on the operating table after your surgeon used unsterile equipment, administered anaesthetic that they knew was out of date and experimental drugs that had never been used on unconscious patients before. IMO that would constitute negligence, and no amount of consent forms, waivers, danger warnings should absolve someone of blame when they’ve acted negligently with prior knowledge of the risks they were taking. If the surgeon were to die the suddenly on the same day then IMO that doesn’t mean that the responsibility dies with them. The blame simply moved up the chain to whoever was in the know, whoever helped surgeon act with such negligence. The hospital for having him, his colleagues for not disclosing to patients that they were stepping into a possible death trap and so on and so forth.. JMO

In this situation IMO regardless of the risks that the passengers waived when they signed that form, from what we know so far they were not fully informed exactly what they were undertaking.
Now does that responsibility fall on them for not asking the questions that the waiver claims oceangate would be there to answer should they have any? Or does the responsibility fall on Oceangate for not disclosing that their viewing port couldn’t handle the pressure at even half the depth of where they planned to go? Or that SR had actually been warned by what we now know to be multiple people that he was putting lives at serious risk?

I don’t think atleast the Dawoods for instance fully understood that from what we are hearing, compared to other submersibles, passengers getting into Titan for that journey down to the titanic appear to have been entering themselves into a disturbing game of Russian roulette.

Does the law surrounding waivers require that those signing have to be in a position to give ‘informed consent’, do they legally have to be fully informed of the dangers or does the fact the waiver mentions ‘other unanticipated, inherent risks’ account for anything those signing don’t know about.

As I’ve said before, it baffles me that no one seems to have asked to consult their attorney for advice prior to signing this waiver. IMO many people with significant wealth tend to seek legal advice before signing any documents. Never mind ones that mention death 8/9 times over 3 pages…

MOO
 
A lot of information in here about the history of the company … development, building of submersibles, challenges, etc…


University of Washington has, I believe, denied that they collaborating in building and testing the Titan.


WikiWand scrapes Wikipedia and then edits down their content for casual readers. I think the OceanGate Wiki is in a state of flux/re-edit.


And, once again, we have the main connection apparently being that a U of W professor went on the CYCLOPS. The professor points out that it was a different and safer design:


I assume this made the professor a "mission specialist," and therefore he "helped" with the CYCLOPS doing its research (professor is a biologist, not an engineer or even an oceanographer). He's the only U of W person I can find who did research with OceanGate (counting fish/species identification).

The depth of that voyage was 1000 feet.

Maybe more and more will come out about various phone calls, passengers taken on three different types of submersibles, etc., but so far, no one from U of W has admitted to helping design anything.

IMO.
 
I’d be interested to hear from a lawyer or someone with legal knowledge about whether the waiver that oceangate had passengers sign would hold up in court? The wording seems to absolve pretty much anyone and everyone remotely connected to Oceangate of all reaponsibility right down to ‘clients, partners and subcontractors’. It seems whoever created this waiver was very careful to list every possible person that could be held responsible if anything went wrong.

However I don’t think the part about negligence should hold up IMO if Oceangate were negligent then the responsibility should fall on them regardless of signed waivers.
It’s kind of like signing a consent form for surgery and then dying on the operating table after your surgeon used unsterile equipment, administered anaesthetic that they knew was out of date and experimental drugs that had never been used on unconscious patients before. IMO that would constitute negligence, and no amount of consent forms, waivers, danger warnings should absolve someone of blame when they’ve acted negligently with prior knowledge of the risks they were taking. If the surgeon were to die the suddenly on the same day then IMO that doesn’t mean that the responsibility dies with them. The blame simply moved up the chain to whoever was in the know, whoever helped surgeon act with such negligence. The hospital for having him, his colleagues for not disclosing to patients that they were stepping into a possible death trap and so on and so forth.. JMO

In this situation IMO regardless of the risks that the passengers waived when they signed that form, from what we know so far they were not fully informed exactly what they were undertaking.
Now does that responsibility fall on them for not asking the questions that the waiver claims oceangate would be there to answer should they have any? Or does the responsibility fall on Oceangate for not disclosing that their viewing port couldn’t handle the pressure at even half the depth of where they planned to go? Or that SR had actually been warned by what we now know to be multiple people that he was putting lives at serious risk?

I don’t think atleast the Dawoods for instance fully understood that from what we are hearing, compared to other submersibles, passengers getting into Titan for that journey down to the titanic appear to have been entering themselves into a disturbing game of Russian roulette.

Does the law surrounding waivers require that those signing have to be in a position to give ‘informed consent’, do they legally have to be fully informed of the dangers or does the fact the waiver mentions ‘other unanticipated, inherent risks’ account for anything those signing don’t know about.

As I’ve said before, it baffles me that no one seems to have asked to consult their attorney for advice prior to signing this waiver. IMO many people with significant wealth tend to seek legal advice before signing any documents. Never mind ones that mention death 8/9 times over 3 pages…

MOO


I posted a link to a news report that quoted Thomas Schoenbaum, a University of Washington law professor, and
George Rutherglen, a professor of admiralty law at the University of Virginia. And, "Lawyer You Know" has covered it a few times on his YT channel (I'd link but I don't know if it's approved).

 
Rush obviously believed in his contraption if he got on it with plans to return. I don't think he was evil and set out to kill people. I don't think he was trying to con people for money, he had a passion and was blinded possibly by ego and excitement. I think many are being disrespectful to a man who just passed away, and was loved by his friends and family. I get being angry at his decisions that led to this tragic event, but making him out to be an evil, scheming, grifter isn't right imo. He didn't hide that he bought used carbon fiber, he didn't hide that he thought he knew better than experts. Would someone set out on intentionally conning people freely admit these things?

All these people that are acting like they knew this would happen didn't exactly go out of their way to alert the general public. If I truly believed people were going to die if they got in this sub, I would have gone out of my way to make people aware, go to the media, contact the government, post all over social media, anything to warn future riders. If people knew this was a ticking time bomb, and kept this info between a small group of people, how are they not somewhat responsible as well?

Any submarine/submersible is likely to implode if it goes too far beyond its rated depth. ARA San Juan was tested to 300m (985ft) but found at 907m (2975ft), so it was almost inevitable that it would implode regardless of what initially caused it to lose control.

To my knowledge, Titan is still the only submersible/submarine to implode at the depth it was designed to operate at.
{snipped by me for focus}

1. An employee of OceanGate was a whistleblower who got fired and SUED for trying to warn the company, the CEO, and the public, that the Titan was absolutely unsafe and should not be used period let alone to go over 12,000 ft under the sea level. OceanGate advertised it could go about 13k feet under sea level when it was having trouble remaining functional at 11k. It had no right to be taking people 12.5k under sea level. "That employee, David Lochridge, was fired by OceanGate after airing his complaints to government regulators and OceanGate's management, with the latter then suing him for breach of contract."
Lochridge claimed he believed the company could "subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible," according to the legal filing.

2. In 2018, a professional trade group warned that OceanGate's experimental approach to the design of the Titan could lead to potentially "catastrophic" outcomes, according to a letter from the group obtained by CBS News. Stockton Rush refused to acknowledge this letter or heed its gentle but firm warning and instead took it as a "personal insult", as he admittedly did with every safety concern for the vessel.

3. OceanGate had said that its engineers worked with NASA, Boeing, and the University of Washington as well as Boeing to create the Titan to be "nearly indestructible" (a quote by Stockton, of course).
NASA has now come forward and said it had provided only remote consultation on the project and it did not give any approvals for the build. Boeing said it was "not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it". The University of Washington also denied involvement in making the ship. These companies helped on initial designs for a much less capable predecessor to the Titan, Cyclops 1. They had much, much less to do with the Titan.

4. The Titan was neither insured or certified. If you care about people's safety in any way, wouldn't those things be important to you?

5. Stockton Rush said that at a certain point, safety stands in the way of innovation. He viewed rules as stifling and unnecessary, and when asked in interviews about customers potentially dying he even laughed a few times. I personally am of the firm belief he had main character syndrome BIG TIME and didn't think anything bad could potentially ever happen to him. The world revolved around Stockton

6. Mr. Rush admitted in an earlier conversation that he had broken rules with the materials used to build the Titan's hull. A clip emerged where Mr Rush told Mexican actor Alan Estrada about the sub’s seven-inch thick acrylic window - the only way to gaze out onto the wreck of the Titanic.

7. Mr Rush adds in the video: "I’ve broken some rules to make this.“I think I broke them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon and firmer and titanium, there’s a rule you don’t do that - well I did."

8. Multiple people have come forward saying he rushed this due to investors pushing for the final product after about 3 years of stagnance, and raised the prices as well. Link below.

I could go on, but I'm in the hospital and exhausted. He is every last bit to blame for this. He was pushy, condescending, and holier-than-thou about scientific aspects he didn't know nearly as much about as he would like to have people believe he did. This cockiness resulted in the loss of 4 lives. In my personal opinion, he has blood on his hands. But if there's any justice to be served, it'll have to be in the next life if one exists.

I find it a little difficult to have empathy for a privileged rich man who was self-focused, aspired constantly to have more power and wealth, and refused to listen to anyone with good sense because he wanted to be the pioneer of deep sea tourism regardless of any corners he'd have to cut.

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