MISSING TITAN SUB - THREAD 5

[tortoishelll]

Thread 5 - a continuation.

My heart aches for those poor men and their families. 💔😔

I think there is plenty to be asked about commercialization of these kinds of things. How individuals asses what risks are ok for them is hard to put lines around, but it seems to me that making these things commercial seems to give people the illusion that they can do anything. It applies to less expensive stuff too, that's not usually so dramatic though.

But that's really not what people like AS are saying. The idea that it's appropriate to say that being able to pay for a trip like that means someone should be paying more taxes is really just saying rich people deserve what they get.

Could someone please kindly link to the book about this kind of exploration that's apparently on amazon on offer at the moment? I drank too much wine last night and have forgotten the title.

Thanks @HundredMilesAnHour I just wish it wouldn't be such a sad reason to talk about it.

@TokyoStories
I was nervous but not scared. There is so much care and attention to detail given by the crews of the sub and the ship to every dive. I had a very experienced pilot and the other scientist had been on several dives as well and I really trusted everyone involved. Things can obviously still go wrong. Also, once you reach the ground there is so much to do, you really don't have time to think about the fact that there are 2000 m of water above you. And I was diving into a geothermal field with black smokers and masses of tubeworms and it's just so amazing to see. The pilot often pointed things out to me as well and made sure I got to see everything properly, like there is a phenomenon that can happen when superheated water gets a little trapped under a flange and it looks like an upside down sparkly lake, it's great. He moved the sub around a bit so I could get a good look at it from my porthole. I'm really grateful to him for putting so much effort in to ensure I got the most out of it.
Inside the sub I could sit with my legs almost stretched out , I needed to bend the knees a little. The only bit where I could stand was in the hatch, I'm pretty tall though and I just fitted in there. Anyone taller than my 5'11 will have to bend a bit. Also, it's the only time on the entire cruise that I wore socks, it does get cold down there.

Thanks so much for sharing @Igneococcus, it sounds majestic.

Is anyone listening?

@Igneococcus have you considered doing an AMA, your career sounds fascinating, you should also talk in schools.

Agreed.

This man must be thanking his lucky stars. I know the aunt of Suleman's claims are debatable but interesting to see the younger generation exercising all the caution.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12225963/amp/Tycoon-gave-seats-doomed-Titanic-sub-Pakistani-businessman-teenage-son.html

Also hadn't considered giant squid, sperm whales and even swordfish to be a threat to a submersible!

This man must be thanking his lucky stars. I know the aunt of Suleman's claims are debatable but interesting to see the younger generation exercising all the caution.

I would go even further and call the aunt's claim outright lies. She didn't get the information from her nephew, claims that someone "told" her and was estranged from her brother. Both the nephew and the brother are dead and cannot challenge what she said. She is loathsome.

@Florissante wow I didn't know she is now saying she was told by someone else. I did think it was strange she would be in touch with her nephew if she was estranged from his father. I must admit in the video she did seem a bit.. stoned.

I am going on a balloon ride for the first time and I am so excited but my friend and I joke that we're also bricking it. Just because we have never done it before and it's high. That could have been the kind of Chinese whispers she has heard.

'Makes you wonder again why did those on board not do a bit of research, and what would have happened to Stockton Rush had he not been on that particular trip himself.'

One of the people who had been originally booked to go on the trip, and I'm sorry I can't remember his name posted a series of WhatsApps between himself and Rush. Rush seemed very pushy, regularly texting to ask if the guy wanted to book a trip, offering a cut price last minute rate, dismissing safety concerns. Giving it the hard sell basically.

One of the reasons she was estranged from her late brother is that he disagreed with her use of medical marijuana.

I was just talking to my father about Titan and how differently people evaluate risk and this moved on to balloon rides. My Dad was on holiday with his BIL in Eqypt and the BIL wanted to go on a balloon ride. My Dad refused as it was too risky in his opinion but the BIL went (and enjoyed it). A few months later the same balloon crashed and people died.

I was just talking to my father about Titan and how differently people evaluate risk and this moved on to balloon rides. My Dad was on holiday with his BIL in Eqypt and the BIL wanted to go on a balloon ride. My Dad refused as it was too risky in his opinion but the BIL went (and enjoyed it). A few months later the same balloon crashed and people died

It is interesting - I wonder how many successful dives would count as being "safe enough" to justify going on the dive - bearing in mind failure could mean instant death and there were lots of ways to fail.

There was the Comet plane - it did many many flights but then several crashed. Due to the square windows instead of round windows - which caused stress on the frame and the window. I guess those passengers assumed it had been through testing and had had many successful flights.

Risk evaluation, knowledge and trust in the system - and a though that it wouldn't happen to you.

I have flown in Nepal to some of the small airstrips - I think that the airlines have an appalling safety record but I was prepared to take the risk.

But how do people know the risk and do they have the information to understand the risk involved?

They were paying passengers on the vessel. They probably had trust and faith that it was all safe and above board. The waivers they signed, they probably thought was a formality from the company. It's not their responsibility to research the characteristics of fibers and materials for a structure. It's like going on a bus or a plane - when was the last time you googled the characteristics of bus or plane materials before boarding a journey? I bet never. There's just a trust in the system.

If they did do research into it, the CEO was very pushy and you don't know what was said. We do know he said at some stage - 'its safer than crossing the road'. We know now that was a lie to sell the service he was offering. We don't know what other lies he told people. He claimed he did work with boeing and we now know that was also a lie but we now also know that he bought redundant materials from boeing.

@sashh Several people did tell Stockton Rush that carbon fibre was a bad idea, not only James Cameron but he didn't listen.

I'll be happy to do an AMA but not until the middle of July. I'm off to a meeting the week after next and thanks to watching the news obsessively in the last few days I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be with finishing my two presentations. I'll need to lock myself away this week and do them.
When ds was in P3 I talked to his teacher about coming in and talking about microbes in extreme environments and then she never got back to me about dates and when I asked she said she didn't think the children could relate and she had got a clinical microbiologist from the hospital. I happily talk to children at any age about my work.

Youtuber Dallmyd was on the sub ‘a few days ago’ and has released his phone footage. Absolutely fascinating to see how the ‘closing’ works and how the navigation happens. His descent was aborted first due to control issues and then weather.

https://twitter.com/overtonlive/status/1672768827031953408

There’s a longer video on youtube.

When the story broke last week, many of us hoped that the sub would be found and we were hoping for a good ending but when the story broke they were likely dead. It's so sad, for the occupants. I wish the CEO was not on the sub and he lived to see what he did. I still can't believe it. He had a disregard for safety and he led those 4 people to their deaths and the way they went. I know I was likely fast from what I read but still, they were turned to dust. That's very hard to stomach and if it was one of my family. There's no body to recover and no coffin to carry and no final goodbye.

Not only did he lead those 4 people to their deaths, but previous dives - he risked many people's lives. Safety should have been paramount to minimise risks.

About the waivers - death was mentioned a few times but was it ever explained how. Running out of oxegyen could be likely but was an implosion ever explained to them.

Many people when they think of a psychopath, they think of a mad killer who lacks empathy for others and that's not really true. I read somewhere before that many CEOs of large company's are psychopaths. They are naturally led to positions of power. They disregard others easily. Rush - he was a psychopath.

Not in this lifetime and not in any other either. Being actually bolted in would finish me off. Those guys must be eternally grateful that their mission was aborted.

Did the CEO go down on every dive does anyone know?

@3luckystars I don't think he does, from things I've read such as on the website and in other accounts it says who 'may' go down with you or that he 'often accompanies guests on his trips'.

Humans are really shit at gauging risk! If we see somebody do something successfully, we think “oh they did it and they were ok, so it must be safe” when the more correct risk assessment is often “they were incredibly lucky not to die doing that, I’m not chancing my luck a second time”.

Humans are really shit at gauging risk! If we see somebody do something successfully, we think “oh they did it and they were ok, so it must be safe” when the more correct risk assessment is often “they were incredibly lucky not to die doing that, I’m not chancing my luck a second time”.

This is because we naturally assume the owners and operators have risk-checked the technical side of things. When planes crash, when rollercoasters come off their tracks, when hot air balloons burst into flames etc it is usually because someone else has failed to ensure things are in safe working order. Things just don't spontaneously fail. The people on that sub assumed it was safe, not because they were foolish, but because there were people who had the responsibility to ensure it was safe.

There was probably also a false sense of security given by the fact that (e.g.) aviation and shipping are heavily regulated by international treaties and conventions, so that in the 21st century these objectively risky activities are rendered remarkably safe. We have become accustomed to that. So the regulatory gap into which submersible diving appears to have fallen (at least when undertaken in international waters) may have tripped them up.

The documentary removed from the BBC is available on vimeo.

I was looking at that submarine in the Canaries. I wonder how safe it actually it is. It has a good safety record, lots of successful dives.

I wonder how much they have prepared for "what if" accidents? Because the "what if" accidents at 30m down could be very very serious accidents.