Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

SteM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750561#Comment_120750561

There was a 15 year old on it? I knew of a 19 year old.

Mefistofelino

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750372#Comment_120750372

Testing it under pressure is a hugely difficult exercise for anyone, not just this crowd. You would need to construct a high pressure enclosure into which you could put the submersible, box it all up and then pressurise the enclosure to 200-400 bar. Bear in mid that the subs have small hatches, view ports etc because of the difficulties of sealing openings, but your test enclosure would need a door large enough to fit a sub through. Such test chamber do exist - there's one in Scotland - but they don't go to the pressures that the Titan experienced, only about 100 bar / 1000m in this case.

True enough, your suggestion of lowering it, unmanned, on a tether to a suitable depth has a certain practicality to it but it's not infallible. The Titan had dived to the Titanic previously so simply submerging it was no guarantee against failure

Bear in mind that every big military submarine in existence was not pressure tested before it went into sea trials. Non-destructive testing of all the fabrication, pressure testing of particular components can be carried out but the tests of the entire assembly are carried out "live", at sea.

Regarding carbon fibre being a "no-no" - that's not a given. Submarines constructed of what we might regard as "proper" materials such as steel or even titanium that have failed catastrophically at shallower depths in the past . And there are composite vessels in the LNG industry rated to 3000 bar internal pressure, so it is possible to construct for high strength applications.

Juran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750649#Comment_120750649

A the start of this earlier this week, it was being reported that he was 15. This may have been corrected since. I.don't know.

thomas 123

What an amazing feat by search teams if they have indeed found it so quick.

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750775#Comment_120750775

I was thinking that alright.

If it had just been entangled in the wreck (and I think we mostly figured the implosion scenario was most likely) and if the alarm had been raised promptly (it seems it lost contact about 10am, was due to surface about 3pm, but the Coast Guard weren't informed until 5pm), they could actually have rescued the guys.

That's remarkable. Well done those guys, even if it's been all in vain sadly.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750794#Comment_120750794

I'd say we might be looking at criminal charges here against those associated with the company still above ground. The whole thing stinks and it looks like corners were cut from start to finish.

SouthWesterly

Implosion is certainly a better end than suffocating to death over numerous hours. But still, what a way to go.

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750824#Comment_120750824

Can't see how that wouldn't happen for sure. What safety measures did they have in place? They do seem to have been winging it a fair bit (though I'm far from an expert), and that's fine until something goes really badly wrong. Which is just has.

I wouldn't like to be a director of that company right now.

Compression-decompression cycles occur with aircraft… in an opposite way, and not to pressure cycles encountered by likes of Titan. Aircraft have to be examined at certain intervals, and the older the hull the shorter the intervals, hence they get written off at a certain point unless they prove their specific value, eg like the Mriya before it got destroyed by Putin. At 50 years old it was refitted for an proposed life extension of 25 years.

Old unpressurised aircraft that fly in difficult terrain at lower altitudes, such as the DC3 have specimens 60 and more years old flying servicing Arctic and Antarctic routes because of their robustness and the fact that they have that bit been less exposed to great pressure cycles.

An example of a jet that partially disintegrated mid air, with a mainly happy outcome, was an Aloha Airlines 737 that had been subject to very frequent very short-haul inter-island sprints.

POBox19

From BBC NEWS

OceanGate statement in full

And here's the full statement from the company:

"We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost. 

These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans. Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew. 

This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss. The entire OceanGate family is deeply grateful for the countless men and women from multiple organisations of the international community who expedited wide-ranging resources and have worked so very hard on this mission. 

We appreciate their commitment to finding these five explorers, and their days and nights of tireless work in support of our crew and their families. 

This is a very sad time for the entire explorer community, and for each of the family members of those lost at sea. 

We respectfully ask that the privacy of these families be respected during this most painful time."

billyhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750857#Comment_120750857

The director died in it.

Mefistofelino

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750934#Comment_120750934

The design codes for composite pressure vessels include a factor for the anticipated number of pressure cycles during the vessels life. The more cycles, the thicker the vessel to compensate for fatigue.

iffandonlyif

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120748294#Comment_120748294

I’m awed by those capabilities and the thought of whatever other secret technologies the US defence forces operate.

Given that an implosion is all-but confirmed, and that we can assume that any such underwater listening arrays would have picked it up, I wonder what people’s thoughts are on the ethics of sitting on that information. If the programme has existed for half a century, it would hardly be news to America’s military antagonists.

standardg60

Nose cone found intact so more than likely the carbon fibre shattered.

Going back to the possibility mentioned earlier that the implosion was probably heard at the time by military monitors, it seems more and more plausible that this was the case given the speed of discovery.

AndyBoBandy

Maybe they did hear it, but disregarded it at the time, or just didn’t pick up on it for whatever reason… (a single isolated pop in the ocean won’t sound like a Russian sub)

I’d say in the coming days/weeks/months they’ll (or someone else who might have been listening) release whatever they heard during the moment of implosion…

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120751018#Comment_120751018

There's more than one director. You can see their Board of Directors via a Google search, though the website is acting up, probably not surprisingly.

They're all equally responsible for the company's operations. In particular, risking people's lives in unsafe submarines (if that turns out to have been what's happened here, and it looks like it)

Tow

I am left wondering that is left of the carbon fiber hull when it imploded at those pressures. Did the material just collapse inwards or shatter into billions of pieces like a car windscreen?

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120751130#Comment_120751130

Everyone on board was fully informed of the risks, and signed a disclaimer to that effect.

International waters are one of the last bastions of free will without regulation or litigation. Plenty may see that as a good thing.

Strong and Faithful

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750824#Comment_120750824

It's actually unbelievable you could get away with this complete disregard for safety. Money really talks.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120751084#Comment_120751084

Suspected it, likely certain it was the implosion but that's not confirmation.

What benefit would there be to making a public statement, information seems to have been passed on to relevant people

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120751111#Comment_120751111

The ROVs arrived on the scene this morning. The first place they went to was to the titanic itself and I imagine worked out from that and sure enough found the debris field.

I find nothing suspicious about that. However as I said earlier in the thread, the fact the Polar Prince didn't have its own ROV is a bit ridiculous. If it had, it could have sent it down on Sunday morning when they lost contact and negated the need for this huge search and rescue effort

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120751180#Comment_120751180

True - though I still think there'll at least be charged pressed, even if they don't stick. The directors will have a lot of work ahead of them defending those charges. I don't know if gross negligence can trump any of that for example (and if this constitutes gross negligence)

There's a billionaire widow in this so money is no object.

AndyBoBandy

I’d say an ROV capable of diving to 4,000m would cost a pretty penny, and not something a company on a shoestring could afford easily….

even their method of launch off the back of the ship looked a bit iffy…. They’d have merely been renting that ship for the few weeks of the year they’d be doing dives…

Chris_5339762

I'm guessing (just guessing) that someone in the military would have checked whatever acoustic logs/sonar they had and would have known it had imploded. That way you say nothing so as to not give away your technological prowess. The hull would be found anyway.

If the military HADN'T seen the implosion on their equipment they may well have helped out, as they would have known it unlikely to be an implosion and then there was the chance of people alive.

elperello

A sad end not unexpected.

RIP to the lost crew.

Fair winds to the searchers.

iffandonlyif

https://twitter.com/amstuart1994/status/1671917541831110656

Quite terrifying video. Obviously the brittle carbon-fibre hull would have shattered.

Mefistofelino

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120751401#Comment_120751401

The Hull was made of filament wound carbon fibre which isn't brittle, at least not in the way a car windscreen would be. Chances are it's a fibrous mess, a bit like these failed composite pressure vessels

iwillhtfu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120750749#Comment_120750749

Yes at the start of the week it said the Scottish mans son was with him but thankfully that doesn't seem to have been the case.

I heard an expert make an intersting comments as too how unknown and vast the seas are when she mentioned more people have been into space than have been to those depths under water. It's no place for tourism and hopefully this tragedy reitirates that.

RIP to all that were lost, may it have been quick an unknown to you all. Sympathies to their families.

Packrat

The CEO guy got off light tbh given what he has done.

Had he not been in it himself he'd have understood what he did, but like most people of his ilk, would probably have explained it away as "exploration risk", in his own mind at least, and self absolved himself from blame.

40 years in prison or a lifetime in hiding would at least have shown him what society thought of his actions.

No pity for anyone there bar that young man. The pilot/captain should have known better with his experience, and the paid-up billionaires were just dick measuring as those people do.

iffandonlyif

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120751454#Comment_120751454

Yikes. Would they not already have found it, though, if they’ve found nose and tail sections?