Disaster Tourism: The Titanic

[Unagi]

I would think so. They could otherwise be violating international law. And think of it this way, no country wants to risk causing an international incident. There are regulated bodies for a reason.

You are dreaming.

[Unagi]

There are certifications that billionaires can choose to find important or chose to find bothersome.

International laws are about things that affect us all, not about what may happen to 5 people that don’t wear their seatbelts.


We can’t even get the ‘United States’ to figure out a ‘helmet law’.

[Isgrimnur]

If only he'd put that much thought into making it safe.

[em2nought]

Did anyone get the Hot Wheel yet?

[Isgrimnur]

Did anyone get the Hot Wheel yet?

I'll wait on the model. Some assembly required.

[Rumpy]

I would think so. They could otherwise be violating international law. And think of it this way, no country wants to risk causing an international incident. There are regulated bodies for a reason.

Hmm. I thought that was the whole reason for the Titans troubled existence. It was being used in International waters so nobody really had any jurisdiction over it.

I mean, yeah, international waters is what makes it tricky. The thing about international waters though is that, if an incident like this one occurs, then the country closest to it ends up taking charge anyway. And it just so happens that the Titanic sank off the Canadian coast, and Canadians will be paying up for the rescue effort. There were real grumbles about having to rescue something uncertified.

[Unagi]

I would think so. They could otherwise be violating international law. And think of it this way, no country wants to risk causing an international incident. There are regulated bodies for a reason.

Hmm. I thought that was the whole reason for the Titans troubled existence. It was being used in International waters so nobody really had any jurisdiction over it.

I mean, yeah, international waters is what makes it tricky. The thing about international waters though is that, if an incident like this one occurs, then the country closest to it ends up taking charge anyway. And it just so happens that the Titanic sank off the Canadian coast, and Canadians will be paying up for the rescue effort. There were real grumbles about having to rescue something uncertified.

This was a Canadian boat launched from a Canadian port.

[Max Peck]

I would think so. They could otherwise be violating international law. And think of it this way, no country wants to risk causing an international incident. There are regulated bodies for a reason.

Hmm. I thought that was the whole reason for the Titans troubled existence. It was being used in International waters so nobody really had any jurisdiction over it.

I mean, yeah, international waters is what makes it tricky. The thing about international waters though is that, if an incident like this one occurs, then the country closest to it ends up taking charge anyway. And it just so happens that the Titanic sank off the Canadian coast, and Canadians will be paying up for the rescue effort. There were real grumbles about having to rescue something uncertified.

This was a Canadian boat launched from a Canadian port.

The ship that OceanGate used to launch the submersible was registered in Canada, but the submersible was registered in the Bahamas. As I understand it, the investigation into the accident is being led by the US Coast Guard, with participation by the Canadian Coast Guard and the RCMP (who are specifically tasked to determine if any Canadian laws were violated).

[Isgrimnur]

the RCMP (who are specifically tasked to determine if any Canadian laws were violated).

So, do they have to trot out the seahorses?

[Rumpy]

I would think so. They could otherwise be violating international law. And think of it this way, no country wants to risk causing an international incident. There are regulated bodies for a reason.

Hmm. I thought that was the whole reason for the Titans troubled existence. It was being used in International waters so nobody really had any jurisdiction over it.

I mean, yeah, international waters is what makes it tricky. The thing about international waters though is that, if an incident like this one occurs, then the country closest to it ends up taking charge anyway. And it just so happens that the Titanic sank off the Canadian coast, and Canadians will be paying up for the rescue effort. There were real grumbles about having to rescue something uncertified.

This was a Canadian boat launched from a Canadian port.

The ship that OceanGate used to launch the submersible was registered in Canada, but the submersible was registered in the Bahamas. As I understand it, the investigation into the accident is being led by the US Coast Guard, with participation by the Canadian Coast Guard and the RCMP (who are specifically tasked to determine if any Canadian laws were violated).

Exactly.

[Punisher]

Did anyone get the Hot Wheel yet?

I'll wait on the model. Some assembly required.

Why bother? Most models come disassembled. Might as well just take it out the box and throw it on your shelf.

[Freyland]

Did anyone get the Hot Wheel yet?

I'll wait on the model. Some assembly required.

Why bother? Most models come disassembled. Might as well just take it out the box and throw it on your shelf.

Hit it with a sledge hammer first, to be authentic.

[Rumpy]

Surprised it's not a transformer that transforms into a gamepad

[Isgrimnur]

OceanGate suspends all operations

[El Guapo]

OceanGate suspends all operations

Is that surprising? Who would ever do business with OceanGate after this extremely public disaster? Even if they still have useful technology / skillsets, you figure they're still better off dissolving and forming a new company so as to break with OceanGate's name / reputation as much as possible.

[Max Peck]

I can't claim to be fluent in emoji, but I believe that, in this context, roughly translates to:

[Isgrimnur]

[Rumpy]

I mean, they're sunk following the disaster anyway. I agree that it'd be better forming a new company. Hopefully with no careless CEO either.

[Isgrimnur]

Their assets should probably be frozen pending all the litigation.

[jztemple2]

I mean, they're sunk following the disaster anyway. I agree that it'd be better forming a new company. Hopefully with no careless CEO either.

Well, don't ask me to sink any money into it.

[Isgrimnur]

Can you at least float them a loan? Their liquidity is bound to dry up.

[Blackhawk]

Well, don't ask me to sink any money into it.

Badum-tshhh!

[Octavious]

I've never seen a company implode so fast! I'll see myself out thanks.

[disarm]

They may have imploded recently, but I think the company has been underwater for years.

[em2nought]

Speaking of underwater companies, my brother sunk money in Global Marine, but they turned out to be just a front for the CIA recovering a submarine instead of searching for oil.

[Max Peck]

The Titan Submersible Disaster Was Years in the Making, New Details Reveal

Fate cleared up the weather, blew off the fog, and calmed the waves, as the submersible and its five passengers dived through the surface waters and fell into another world. They entered the deep ocean’s uppermost layer, known as the twilight zone, passing creatures glimmering with bioluminescence, tiny fish with enormous teeth. Then they entered the midnight zone, where larger creatures ghost by like alien moons. Two miles down, they entered the abyssal zone—so named because it’s the literal abyss.

Deeper means heavier: pressures of 5,000, then 6,000 pounds per square inch. As it descended, the submersible was gripped in a tightening vise. Maybe they heard a noise then, maybe they heard an alarm.

I hope they watched the abyss with awe through their viewport, because I’d like to think their last sights were magnificent ones.

As the world now knows, Stockton Rush touted himself as a maverick, a disrupter, a breaker of rules. So far out on the visionary curve that, for him, safety regulations were mere suggestions. “If you’re not breaking things, you’re not innovating,” he declared at the 2022 GeekWire Summit. “If you’re operating within a known environment, as most submersible manufacturers do, they don’t break things. To me, the more stuff you’ve broken, the more innovative you’ve been.”

In a culture that has adopted the ridiculous mantra “move fast and break things,” that type of arrogance can get a person far. But in the deep ocean, the price of admission is humility—and it’s nonnegotiable. The abyss doesn’t care if you went to Princeton, or that your ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. If you want to go down into her world, she sets the rules.

And her rules are strict, befitting the gravitas of the realm. To descend into the ocean’s abyssal zone—the waters from 10,000 to 20,000 feet—is a serious affair, and because of the annihilating pressures, far more challenging than rocketing into space. The subs that dive into this realm (there aren’t many) are tested and tested and tested. Every component is checked for flaws in a pressure chamber and checked again—and every step of this process is certified by an independent marine classification society. This assurance of safety is known as “classing” a sub. Deep-sea submersibles are constructed of the strongest and most predictable materials, as determined by the laws of physics.

In the abyss, that means passengers typically sit inside a titanium (or steel) pressure hull, forged into a perfect sphere—the only shape that distributes pressure symmetrically. That means adding crush-resistant syntactic foam around the sphere for buoyancy and protection, to offset the weight of the titanium. That means redundancy upon redundancy, with no single point of failure. It means a safety plan, a rescue plan, an acute situational awareness at all times.

It means respect for the forces in the deep ocean. Which Stockton Rush didn’t have.

[em2nought]

As the world now knows, Stockton Rush touted himself as a maverick, a disrupter, a breaker of rules. So far out on the visionary curve that, for him, safety regulations were mere suggestions. “If you’re not breaking things, you’re not innovating,” he declared at the 2022 GeekWire Summit. “If you’re operating within a known environment, as most submersible manufacturers do, they don’t break things. To me, the more stuff you’ve broken, the more innovative you’ve been.”

In a culture that has adopted the ridiculous mantra “move fast and break things,” that type of arrogance can get a person far. But in the deep ocean, the price of admission is humility—and it’s nonnegotiable. The abyss doesn’t care if you went to Princeton, or that your ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. If you want to go down into her world, she sets the rules.

It means respect for the forces in the deep ocean. Which Stockton Rush didn’t have.

Hyman Rickover would have loved this guy.

[Isgrimnur]

[Max Peck]

I didn't see any new information in the written article, but maybe there is something in the full Fifth Estate episode. I haven't carved out 45 minutes to watch that yet.

The deadly dive to the Titanic

The pressure was on. It was the spring of 2023 and Stockton Rush had been busy selling seats on his submersible for the adventure of a lifetime — a deep ocean dive to the most storied shipwreck on the planet — the Titanic.

Five planned dives had sold out for the season — at $250,000 US a ticket in his five-person sub fittingly named Titan. The expeditions left from St. John’s. But so far, the season was shaping up to be a bust.

Rush, the ever-optimistic CEO of OceanGate, a U.S. company with three submersibles, had already taken groups of paying customers 600 kilometres across the North Atlantic to the wreck twice over the last couple of weeks, only to be turned back by the weather and electrical problems with his sub.

Mission No. 5 would be the last of the season. And Rush, fuelled by hubris and freed by a lack of maritime oversight, was determined to make this dive a success. So he left St. John’s on June 16, bound for tragedy.

An investigation by CBC’s The Fifth Estate and the Radio-Canada’s Enquête has uncovered new information about the doomed sub, including how Rush silenced critics while he boasted about breaking basic engineering rules and misled the public. And how, for three years, his experimental submersible was allowed to leave a Canadian port without any oversight to carry passengers to the Titanic.