Posted on 06/21/2023 6:41:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A submersible carrying tourists to look at the remains of the Titanic went missing on Sunday, and the odds of anyone onboard surviving grow lower by the day. It’s also been reported that the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company behind the excursion, is onboard. And the more information that comes out, the less surprising it is that we’ve ended up in this situation.
Metro reports that last year, when asked about the safety of the Titan submersible, Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s CEO, said, “You know, there’s a limit. At some point safety just is pure waste. I mean if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk/reward question. I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”
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According to the report, OceanGate fired David Lochridge when he questioned how safe the Titan was and later sued him after he filed a whistleblower complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, claiming he violated the terms of his contract. Lochridge then countersued, claiming he was wrongfully terminated. In the suit, he said he pushed back against launching the Titan without doing “non-destructive testing to prove its integrity.”
“The paying passengers would not be aware, and would not be informed, of this experimental design, the lack of non-destructive testing of the hull, or that hazardous flammable materials were being used within the submersible,” Lochridge said in his suit.
From the CBS story:
The Titan relied on carbon fiber for a hull that would carry passengers as deep as 4,000 meters, a depth that Lochridge claimed in the court filing had never been reached in a carbon fiber-constructed sub. According to his claim, he learned the vessel was built to withstand a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate planned to take passengers to 4,000 meters. Titan relied on carbon fiber for a hull that would carry passengers as deep as 4,000 meters, a depth that Lochridge claimed in the court filing had never been reached in a carbon fiber-constructed sub. According to his claim, he learned the vessel was built to withstand a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate planned to take passengers to 4,000 meters.
He also said that even though the Titan was made out of carbon fiber, no carbon fiber sub had ever gone that deep before.
If these claims are true, they paint a pretty clear picture of a CEO who didn’t care about safety and was happy to risk other people’s lives to make a little money.
Explode = KABOOM!
Implode = MOOBAK?
Wait! What was the key control to restart the oxygen again?
I think it was Attack,down,down,up,Fire,back,back
No wait...you also have to hold the green button while doing that
3800m is probably about 12,500 feet.
Yep, it is. :)
If I was on the sub, the first thing I’d do is increase the air supply by 20% by offing this guy.
He was an expert on surface naval construction and the Titanic. He was not a subject matter expert in submarine vehicle construction - and several such SMEs plus those who are in the carbon fiber fabrication industry have commented about the bad layup technique chosen.
... in the dark, and waiting for your oxygen to run out. Not the best way to go.
That would have been the most merciful outcome.
This will get very complicated before it’s over.
More complicated that the submarine itself.
“... in the dark, and waiting for your oxygen to run out. Not the best way to go.”
Not to mention the sub has no toilet.
“I’d bet that the hull breached on Day 1.”
Agreed, perhaps they didn’t even make it to their destination. If the capsule was crushed they may find it on the bottom near the Titanic, however if the ballast mechanism was compromised and just enough air to keep it from hitting bottom it may well be carried away on the North Atlantic currents never to be found.
It is said there is a fine line between guts and stupidity.
There are some questions about the air handling system on board the vessel. And they didn’t have much water with them, so if they drank it all on the first day...
Not to mention:
batteries
passwords
OS upgrade
blue screen of death
or simply ... game over
Wasn’t he in the sub for this trip?
“He was an expert on surface naval construction and the Titanic”
I referred to him as a Titanic expert.
OTOH, as a veteran of over 35 deep sea dives to the Titanic he should have noticed something.
Flaws and residual stresses in the carbon shell degrade the buckling/collapse margins and the thick walls do not transfer loads well to the Titanium closures. The adhesive bonded joint configuration is really hard to execute without bond line defects such as voids, delaminations, porosity, bond line thickness variations, resin starved areas and other defects. Any misalignment of the bonded titanium end caps will really meet up the loads in the vessel. It is a real hard joint to get right
Yes, apparently. That wasn’t something I was aware of at the time of my first comment in this thread.
I can’t imagine the irony of firing your safety guy and then dying on your maiden voyage to the bottom of the sea.
“Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s CEO, said, “You know, there’s a limit. At some point safety just is pure waste. I mean if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk/reward question.
I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”
Apparently not.
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