Missing Sub

[fatbob]

I guess the argument is without the paying customers no innovation. I think innovative deep sea innovation may have done for itself with this incident. Personally don"t have anything against people gambling with their lives for a thrill provided they a) know what the odds are and b) don't expect others to make extraordinary efforts to rescue them from the consequences.

 

[dbostedo]

people had more common sense ? No internet ?
Only in this age of the all knowing idiot is this possible.

I think there were just as many idiots back then... they just didn't have the reach and/or the general public didn't know about them, because they didn't have the internet/media/communications capability of today. There aren't more idiots - you just hear about all of them now.

 

[wooglin]

I think there were just as many idiots back then... they just didn't have the reach and/or the general public didn't know about them, because they didn't have the internet/media/communications capability of today. There aren't more idiots - you just hear about all of them now.

More people, more idiots. It’s the ratio of people to idiots that doesn’t change.

 

[dbostedo]

More people, more idiots. It’s the ratio of people to idiots that doesn’t change.

True... by "just as many idiots" I meant on a percentage basis.

 

[JCF]

I agree people are all the same, more or less.
But I would also argue, every age has a particular character of human...brilliance - and stupidity.

Individuals will always do crazy stuff like strapping on wings or racing cars. Odysseus and crew were sailors...And Cortez and Magellan, all sailed on tested craft. The Titanic was well engineered.
Stuff happens. Some people are thrill seekers, adventurers, or nuts.

I don't recall cases (I could well be wrong and I need to look into it because it is an interesting subject) where some brand new technology came along (like the early airplane) and before vetted for a more widespread use, people were signing up for thrill rides to/beyond the extreme limits.
The early years of commercial aviation were sketchy and many planes went down with passengers, but even those rigs were vastly improved over the paper and wood planes at the beginning of flight.
We are still at the early stages of deep sea exploration, the only thing that compares are the early (pre WW1) flying machines and the early space program (sailing craft were around forever) and nobody was paying for a ride in either of those so far as I know, nor were those early machines going from experimental stage to the 30,000 feet or the moon - with passengers, after only - how many dives did that thing make before it was signing people up?

 

[crosscountry]

We are still at the early stages of deep sea exploration, the only thing that compares are the early (pre WW1) flying machines and the early space program (sailing craft were around forever) and nobody was paying for a ride in either of those so far as I know, nor were those early machines going from experimental stage to the 30,000 feet or the moon - with passengers, after only - how many dives did that thing make before it was signing people up?

It is a bit weird for joyriders paying big money to be the monkey. But you're mistaken on this being singular case. There's this Japanese billionaire signed up as the FIRST passenger on one of the experimental rockets to space! The spacecraft hasn't been completed yet!!!

For comparison, deep sea vessels had a rather good record. How many deep sea explore vessels had been lost/imploded? Whilst spacecrafts had blown up occasionally (twice had human in it, in the US alone).

Anyway, the wreckage of Titan had been brought up. We'll hopefully get some solid information on what had, or had not, happened to the vessel.

 

[charlier]

Recovery of Titan’s 22’ hull hwbe been recovered. The U.S. Marine Board of Investigation will do further analysis and testing. Investigators will look at three things, a point of failure of the hull, how pieces of carbon fiber and titanium, the submersible’s materials, were connected; and if any electronic data was recoverable.

Debris and Presumed Human Remains From Lost Titan Are Recovered

Debris from the Titan was returned to land off Newfoundland, nearly a week after an international search-and-rescue effort for the vessel ended and its five passengers were presumed dead.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Andy Mink]

Recovery of Titan’s 22’ hull hwbe been recovered. The U.S. Marine Board of Investigation will do further analysis and testing. Investigators will look at three things, a point of failure of the hull, how pieces of carbon fiber and titanium, the submersible’s materials, were connected; and if any electronic data was recoverable.

Debris and Presumed Human Remains From Lost Titan Are Recovered

Debris from the Titan was returned to land off Newfoundland, nearly a week after an international search-and-rescue effort for the vessel ended and its five passengers were presumed dead.

www.nytimes.com

Here's one that's not behind a paywall.

See photos of recovered Titan sub debris after "catastrophic implosion" during Titanic voyage

The U.S. Coast Guard said "presumed human remains" recovered from the sub's wreckage would undergo analysis by medical professionals.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[James]

Looks like they got a lot of it.

 

[James]

Interesting article on a Rhode Island company that builds unmanned carbon fiber deep sea submersibles.


——————————
Composite Energy Technologies (CET) provides carbon fiber pressure vessels to commercial and government customers such as the Office of Naval Research that have never failed in their dives to much deeper sites than Titanic, said president Chase Hogoboom in an interview with Design News…


…Rush also declined to crowdsource know-how from the deep-sea community, which is described as being tight-knit and communicative. “When you’re working in these specialized scientific environments, it is a supportive community that is interested in sharing and learning from each other,” explained Hogoboom. Rush passed on the opportunity to tap into the others’ knowledge and experience, he said.

“I had some email exchanges with that guy Rush a handful of years ago,” he recalled. “I thought there would be some interest in some of the data we had collected. He seemed interested but not enough to come by and visit.”

There was another missed opportunity more recently, according to Hogoboom. “He had the OceanGate sub at the University of Rhode Island (which is near CET’s headquarters) a couple of years ago. In advance of that visit, I shared with him some of the work we were doing in that space. It was a bit of a surprise that he wasn’t interested.”
——————-

Carbon Fiber Is Safe for Submersibles When Properly Applied

Composite Energy Technologies has built dozens of carbon fiber deep-sea pressure vessels without failure.

www.designnews.com

Article on OceanGate’s first composite hull. I think this is the one that was scrapped and they switched supplier and manufacturer.

https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/composite-submersibles-under-pressure-in-deep-deep-waters

 

[crosscountry]

Needless to say, the failure of OceanGate composite vessel is going to cast a negative shadow over all composite material used in deep sea exploration. That's bad news for any company building composite deep sea vessel!

The "titanium only" gang's criticism of other materials is bringing out some interesting debate. Should be fun to watch.

 

[Seldomski]

I thought this video was interesting. Apologies if it was posted already.

 

[surfsnowgirl]

Waivers are BS. It's an adhesian contract. You can't be forced to give up your rights out of the gate. Years ago my ex SO sued a skating rink because they didn't exercise reasonable care in the area where people put on their skates, take their shoes off, etc. There were shoes strewn about everywhere and John skated off the rink over to that area and tripped over shoes that were out in the open. He sued and won. If you can prove that the place was negligent in some way you have a case. Of course you are still at the whim of opposing counsel and the judge but it's usualy worth pursuing.

 

[BLiP]

I guess the argument is without the paying customers no innovation.

Money for innovation must come from somewhere. If the product can’t be monetized, then you’re reliant on research grants and government contracts. Or the deep pockets of an interested benefactor.

Personally don"t have anything against people gambling with their lives for a thrill provided they a) know what the odds are and b) don't expect others to make extraordinary efforts to rescue them from the consequences.

Who gets to decide what risks/personal choices/thrill seeking endeavors deserve rescue efforts and which do not? If I’m backcountry skiing in a designated area, do I deserve rescue efforts? What if I’m in an area known for avalanches? Does that change the calculation? What if I’m a smoker? That’s a well-known and documented risk. Should refuse medical care to anyone who smokes? What if a time-tested and proven submersible, such as Alvin, has a malfunction? Do we go to extraordinary efforts then? Does it matter whether it was on a dedicated research mission or just "undersea tourism"? All of this is easy to say or type on your keyboard, but much harder to put into practice.

 

[James]

This is a fascinating video from 1985. I guess this was the original presentation of the discovery of the Titanic by Robert Ballard. He hasn’t even slept yet since leaving the Titanic site, but is very amped up. Very detailed about what they went through and how they found it, and documenting. Well worth the time to watch it if you’re interested in the Titanic.

 

[James]

New article from the New Yorker with some more info on the sub.

David Lochridge was the chief pilot and director of Marine Operations for OceanGate before being fired after his report on the Titan. He had three decades of experience as a submersible pilot around the world. In 2018 he did a report on the Titan and called for full non destructive testing of the carbon fiber hull. The answer was no, they’d use acoustic monitoring of the hull.

——————-
…But, in a court filing, Lochridge’s lawyer wrote, “this type of acoustic analysis would only show when a component is about to fail—often milliseconds before an implosion—and would not detect any existing flaws prior to putting pressure onto the hull.”

Soon afterward, Rush asked OceanGate’s director of finance and administration whether she’d like to take over as chief submersible pilot. “It freaked me out that he would want me to be head pilot, since my background is in accounting,” she told me. She added that several of the engineers were in their late teens and early twenties, and were at one point being paid fifteen dollars an hour. Without Lochridge around, “I could not work for Stockton,” she said. “I did not trust him.” As soon as she was able to line up a new job, she quit.

“I would consider myself pretty ballsy when it comes to doing things that are dangerous, but that sub is an accident waiting to happen,” Lochridge wrote to McCallum, two weeks later. “There’s no way on earth you could have paid me to dive the thing.” Of Rush, he added, “I don’t want to be seen as a Tattle tale but I’m so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego.”
————————————

The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

Interviews and e-mails with expedition leaders and employees reveal how OceanGate ignored desperate warnings from inside and outside the company. “It’s a lemon,” one wrote.

www.newyorker.com

 

[cantunamunch]

I'll put this here.




Credit to the maker - he doesn't even try to pretend that he's got actual insight about the Titan incident, other than 'building CF subs is hard'. There are no clear-cut takeaways here.

That said, I think the first implosion slo-mo video shows rebound from the heat of compression of the trapped air. It's the flash towards the image-left side of the cylinder.

 

[crosscountry]

Thanks James, for the link to the New Yorker article. Just finished reading it.

"...the iridium satellite beacon, to transmit the submersible’s position after surfacing, was attached with zip ties..."

That's a pretty critical piece of gear (as the occupants can't exit without outside help), and it's "attached with zip ties"? That's pretty damming!

Crossing the line between innovation into cowboy operation only takes one man's ego.

 

[James]

Very interesting interview with Karl Stanley who runs his own sub diving company in Honduras. He went in the Titan on a very early dive and wrote an email to Rush about the problems.
The noises were like a small caliber gun going off. He was actually fine about the certification issue due to the cost, but not much else.

Clips from the interview-
11:30


Full interview link