Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755599#Comment_120755599

Most private aviation accidents are caused by pilot error. (Most commercial ones are too, but they are far far rarer.)

Aviation is a highly regulated industry, literally every nut and bolt is certified. This is why it is so safe.

There appears to have been no external oversight of this crowd of cowboys at all.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755700#Comment_120755700

The biggest problem is probably that you can't x-ray it to spot defects like you can with a metal hull.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755626#Comment_120755626

He is one of the most experienced pilots of deep sea submersibles, set record depth dives, been involved in design and construction for near 25 years now. Arguably he is the most experienced submersible pilot to date. From a construction and engineering point view he has experience that only a handful could match. So what if he is a movie director, he has been at the cutting edge of this for decades now.

There might be some few more experienced or knowledgeable than him but they would all be in his mobile contacts list and he would have years working with them.

His work on Challenger deep is worth watching, good stuff on YouTube about it. The schlock Titanic movie paid for lots of his passion.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120754180#Comment_120754180

Drugs and prostitution are both heavily regulated areas across the globe. Some areas regulation is more lax that others but they are both heavily regulated.

In this instance the company stated as fact that NASA and Boeing were heavily involved in the ship design - this is patently untrue. Do you think it right that the people who ended up in that sub made certain assumptions based on what they were told about the subs design and who was involved in it. Do you think the the company should be allowed to walk away from this without any issue?

The company involved, in a number of their statements so far have been at pains to make the point that the people on the sub should not be viewed as paying customers but scientists and researchers - I'd expect this categorisation is important from a legal standpoint but it needs to be knocked on the head.

In relation to who investigates - that should be relatively straight forward. The company has to be registered in some country, as does the boat that the vessel went to the dive site on - as the canadians and US are already involved and I believe at least one of the entities is registered in the US, the US Coast Guard and NTSB will probably take the lead on it.

While you mightnt think it important that tax payers don't fund investigations and regulations into "this sort of stuff" - you'll find that most taxpayer don't care either way.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755599#Comment_120755599

Why are people equating this with flying in the 1920's? They are totally different things. This shouldn't need to be said.

My issue here is that we all sign waivers from time to time to do various activities where injury and death are often listed as a potential outcome. We usually assume these outcomes are unlikely as certain safety standards have been met and that the providers of the services have done as much as they can possibly do to minimise the risk of these outcomes.

When the provider patently lied about the development of the service, had been warned about the significant risks associated with the type of craft involved and potentially didn't listen to component manufacturers on the certification limites of components - we have a problem.

Whether you want to blane the "stupidity" of those that paid the money to go on the vessel for believing certain things or you want to play the company involved - yes lessons have to be learned so that this type of thing doesnt happen again, in the same way that lessons have been learned in almost every air accident since that first flight (and many failed ones before it) that have made air travel as ubiquition and generally safe as it is today.

Not that I think in 100 years time humans will be regular visitors to 4K under the sea mind.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755936#Comment_120755936

And the same applies to Cameron's dive in the Marianas trench. The sub built for that wasn't certified either. I agree with Cameron that in this case it probably should have been, given it was taking fare paying passengers.

Aviation is highly regulated, and almost all of the knowledge used to inform those regulations is based on what has been derived from analysing decades of accidents, such as the effort put into avoiding and looking for metal fatigue because of the Comet crashes.

I don't think the problem is so much that CF was used, but more a case of how it was used and how much of it was used. Six weeks to design and build something so critical is just nuts.

kirk.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755943#Comment_120755943

Boeing got away with a lot despite regulation

Nasa 2 mishaps with shuttles

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755947#Comment_120755947

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z434n5/meet-ron-allum-engineer-who-built-james-camerons-mariana-trench-submarine

You mean Cameron didn't actually design and build it? the ability of some people to self promote and gain credit for ather people's work is as old as time.

He's not an engineer, though reading your spiel you'd think he had a Phd in the topic. He's rich and paid for engineers to design and build his subs. That does not mean he's as qualified as they are to design and build subs.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120754011#Comment_120754011

If he had recovered a single piece of coal he could have claimed savage rights to Titanic which would have hampered the money grabbers.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/who-owns-titanic-controversy-wreck-unternational-atlantic-ocean-waters-2424035

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756186#Comment_120756186

No, nor did he do the welding but he still remains one of the few in the world with this depth of experience in deep sea diving and the planning and creation process.

He has something like 5 self piloted dives, below 20,000 ft, a couple dozen trips to the Titanic.

The idea that he is not more than qualified to speak on the topic or anything but a leading global expert is silly. After the French pilot died in this, he probably has the most experience of anyone alive in the field.

It's purely down to him being so rich, an obsession with diving and the ability to bank roll it and spend so many years in it.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755295#Comment_120755295

Something that struck me today was the realisation that the mother ship never moved from it's position until the deep sea rovs carrying ships arrived, occupied it's exact position and deployed, both of them. The mother ship needed to be directly over the sub to maintain communication.

If Cameron knew the sub was ascending due to warnings and the navy picked up the implosion through the grapevine, then you can be sure the organisers of the rescue did, so why all the surface searching and dropping of sonar buoys and reports of banging?

Because it was purely an exercise in optics and distraction while they waited for the ships to arrive at the location, which was outside the survivability window of 72 hours. The deployment of the rovs was all that was needed to confirm what they knew already, everything else was to satisfy the requirement of being seen to be doing something.

It's an interesting aspect of humanity, if they'd said listen there's no point in us doing anything until those ships arrive there would have been uproar, though i very much doubt that the families of those involved weren't told the truth early on.

chooseusername

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756283#Comment_120756283

Cameron said he knew "100%" they were dead within hours, yet said nothing for 4 days. Now he's all over every TV news channel saying he knew within hours they were all dead. He comes across now as no better than all the other so-called "experts" dragged in front of cameras for their expertise.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756479#Comment_120756479

Everyone involved knew, they just couldn't publically announce it until it was confirmed by the rovs, which took 4 days to get there.

It wouldn't surprise me if the mother ship has audio, if they record it, of the initial warning, the attempted ascent, and the implosion itself.

hamburgham

Why did it take them so long to report it though?

hamburgham

And where did the nonsense about the banging every 30 minutes come from?

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756941#Comment_120756941

There was no point reporting it until the ROV’s could be deployed there to confirm it…. It would have left too many uncertainties even though they were pretty sure it had imploded. The ROV was deployed and found the wreckage almost immediately, and once that fact became public, then it was time to speak out.

Jeff2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756479#Comment_120756479

There were people involved on the ship and others not on the ship in a what's app group that were communicating to each other what was going on that other people didn't know.

There was a guy live on Sky news who personality know two of the people on the sub and got a message on his phone about parts being found and what they were.

hamburgham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756951#Comment_120756951

Thanks. I meant on the Sunday though. Did the crew on the ship just think it had gone missing again and not realise the gravity of the situation?

Leg End Reject

It would be reckless to announce the sub had imploded and all 5 had died until there was definitive proof.

y0ssar1an22

i reckon if i was a billionaire i would just get my own built rather than going for the cheapest ticket in town.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756941#Comment_120756941

I assume you mean the reporting to the coast guard? Maybe they thought there was no point, along with panic and wondering what to do. There was probably a lot of in-house communication too.

The delay in reporting is certainly one of those unanswered questions as of yet, you would think that would have been immediate in most circumstances.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756948#Comment_120756948

I would assume that once the report of hearing banging was released, someone opined that banging every 30 minutes was a known practice, and suddenly it became banging every 30 minutes was heard.

It was never officially confirmed that it ever was that.

kirk.

Can we implode the thread now ?

waterwelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755981#Comment_120755981

So if the boat was registered in Ireland Paddy would be investigating it all and we would all be happy to foot the bill?

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120757603#Comment_120757603

I believe we would have a legal obligation do to so - so yes, we would be investigating.

Some people wouldn't be happy, but you cant keep everyone happy.

How much does it really cost to investigate anyway. It's not like ships are being built and people hired to carry it out. They're just being moved around and it's like a training exercise.

waterwelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120757735#Comment_120757735

Exactly. It's all about being seen to be doing the right thing.

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755599#Comment_120755599

Love all the comparisons to the moon landing. These guys were doing nothing new. The same finger pointers you are complaining will get nothing done have already been down to the titanic. Doing something adventurous is fine. Doing something adventurous in an idiotic way is still idiotic. These people payed the price for trying to cheap out on the equipment.

If people want to go down there are people will the know how and equipment to get them there with a far higher degree of safety, it will just cost more than 250k.

Less of a moon landing and more trying to climb everest without spending any money.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756175#Comment_120756175

wth has that got to do with my post?

One of the major problems identified with NASA (twice) was the lack of external oversight. No regulator. With Boeing it was regulatory capture. Neither of these is an argument against regulation - quite the opposite in fact.

CrabRevolution

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758945#Comment_120758945

Yeah the "If we listened to the naysayers we'd all still be on horses" stuff is hilarious, as though this sub was attempting something never before achieved.

Depending on how you define it, modern submarines have been used for 150+ years, with the most extreme depth a submarine can reach being reached over 60 years ago. What new ground was this submarine breaking by being the 100th+ trip to a spot at a depth 2 thirds shallower than depths reached in 1960?

Their innovation seemed to be cutting costs, and it looks like they paid the ultimate price.