Have you guys heard about this? It popped up on my radar screen recently, and I've watched with some interest. I'm not a mariner, nor a submariner, but I like a good submarine movie. Yet, I figured that the guy running the show knew what he was about.
So, in this story, a bunch of rookies decide to take an untested design down to see the Titanic., which rests about 12,500 feet below the surface. Coms are lost. The vessel never returns. Two crew and three paying passeng3rs tempted fate.
There is an old saying in the redneck community. "F*ck around, find out" Sometimes the lessons are hard, other times the lessons are very hard. But, they are always hard. I'm sure that there are similar aphorisms in the maritime community. But it seems that what happened to this submersible were completely predicable.
6 comments:
You can’t beat physics.
It wasn't untested. Had been down multiple times. Wasn't certified, and was a private venture Sightseeing for a quarter million bucks per person per trip.
Having said that, it appears that it was a death trap run on a shoestring.
But get the facts straight.
Like space, deep sea is a dangerous place. My rough calc would be 5500 psi on the hull. Will the hull, hatches, feedthroughs, viewing ports and welds hold it? What about metal fatigue as the hull compresses and decompresses? The stuff of engineering nightmares.
It was powered by a knockoff Xbox controller. And apparently, an ex employee was fired for saying that it was not safe, that it had gone on 4 voyages proor to this one, and had lost communication each time. And... all of the paying passengers signed a waver beforehand, which outlines the numerous ways they could die if they went on the voyage.
While I am mystified that people paid a quarter of a million dollars to sit in a space not bigger than the inside of a van, opersted by an xbox type remote, it is sad.
The company owner was a woke rich guy who wouldn't hire anyone over 50 because they didn't think out of the box enough- or something.
A whistleblower got fire back in 2018 IIRR for saying the entire vehicle was just waiting on something to go wrong.
I'm sure the courts will rule on that waiver, but if the company goes under it'll be a moot point...
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