MISSING TITAN SUB - THREAD 5

[tortoishelll]

Thread 5 - a continuation.

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

Not in this lifetime and not in any other either. Being actually bolted in would finish me off

Read the 'bolted in from the outside' and thought 'not even with a gun at my head.'

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.

Yes, he came across poorly in those texts. Quite mocking of the son's concerns (which were a bit random but still) and very much the arrogant salesman.

There's nothing wrong with that per se until it affects the risk protocols, as sadly it did here with fatal consequences. I think it's probably just that he was the employee on the last voyage (as much as I don't wish death on anyone).

Apparently not, the BBC documentary shows someone else as the pilot struggling with the controls. They didn’t know what direction each remote control button was mapped to!

https://twitter.com/treesey/status/1672735296436199430

@Igneococcus
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

What is this phenomenon called please? Can you link to a photo?

I was really intrigued by your post and tried to google it but had no joy and just got bioluminesence no matter how many variants I tried!

Hamish Harding was told directly by at least two experts not to go on the Titan according to this article in the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/told-friend-hamish-damn-titan-sub-latest-2gfxtdbnw

Victor Vescovo "one of the world’s most accomplished deep sea pilots" is quoted as saying:

"Hamish asked to go to the Titanic in my submersible and that’s not something I do, plus it would cost millions of dollars. When Stockton was able to succeed in taking people down in his, Hamish became set on it,” Vescovo said.
“I talked to Hamish about it and I told him he shouldn’t get in that damn sub . . . it was only a matter of time before they [OceanGate] kill somebody. But Hamish really, really wanted to go to the Titanic and that was the only opportunity . . . now it’s ‘Damn, why didn’t I raise more fuss, should I have been more aggressive?’”

Rob McCallum, a founding partner of EYOS Expeditions and an expert in deepwater submersibles, previously led multiple dives to the Titanic using Russian Mir submersibles and ran a test programme for the film director James Cameron’s trip to Challenger Deep in 2012.

When McCallum heard that Harding was considering a $250,000 Titan passenger trip to the Titanic, he said: “I sat down with Hamish and went through things and showed him the flaws and the correspondence. I tried to show him, don’t do this.” But on Friday, June 16, Harding and his crewmates set sail from St John’s aboard the Polar Prince, a former Canadian coastguard icebreaker.

When you take this into account, it makes Hamish Harding (who had done deep dives before and knew how respected these people were) look like an absolute absolute idiot. He was told directly at least twice by eminent people.

told directly by at least two experts not to go on the Titan

The problem with a statement like that is... how many explorers are told not to do X or Y, then they do it anyway, and nothing bad happens. We don't know if the warnings HH got were more severe than the warnings that other 'explorers' and adventurers hear (for all sorts of other risky activities) If there's no reference for 'normal' or 'too risky', then fact he had those warnings doesn't mean much.

If I listend to MNer warnings, I'd never set food outside my door.

Heh @lljkk - I begged my sister not to do a (tandem) sky-dive, convinced she’d land in a helicopter’s whirling blades (think that had happened just the week before). She pretended to listen, promised she wouldn’t do it, then did it anyway, in secret. Which admittedly stopped me worrying.

I don't think it has an official name @SirQuintusAureliusMaximus
Here is a video on the Smithonian website. They call it a mirror rather than an upside down lake. The one I saw wasn't quite as smooth as this one, and also smaller.

Scientists Spot Beautiful Optical Illusion at Bottom of the Sea | Science| Smithsonian Magazine

Ooooooooooh!

That's beautiful @Igneococcus

I'm not sure that the majority of MNers are experts on anything except Mulberry handbags and how to feed 25 people from one small chicken.😜

If a well known expert in deepwater submersibles told me it wasn't safe to get in a deepwater submersible, I'd take his advice.

But easily said with the benefit of hindsight. Rush was quite the salesman and maybe the lure of seeing the Titanic was just too much.

@Igneococcus I'd like to also lend my thanks to you for the amazing experiences you've shared with us in these threads.
I think you are based in Scotland? Would you mind sharing roughly which area?

How horrible to feel like you warned your friend something very specialist to your field of knowledge was a bad idea yet you couldn't save them.

How patronising. You have no idea who's on here.

Another one adding my thanks to you for sharing these stories and your expertise throughout.

Bit rude. Loads of us know quite a bit thanks.

'I'm not sure that the majority of MNers are experts on anything except Mulberry handbags and how to feed 25 people from one small chicken.😜'

Yeah that's all women know about, handbags.

I agree!

I know fuck all about handbags

I'm good on the chicken though.

Stockton Rush was on Reddit under the username 'OceanGateInc'.

All I know about handbags is I can never find one that adequately meets my needs. Too small, too large, wrong colour, goes tatty easily, too boring, too trendy, uncomfortable to handle, falls over a lot, not enough pockets,too many pockets, not roomy enough....

But if you ask me about the theories to do with my work, or about sociology, or about caring for animals, or cooking, you could ask a much worse person.

I know about lung cancer, and horses. The comma there is to make it clear I know nothing about lung cancer in horses, and if I want to know I’ll google.

Ah, google tells me horses can get lung cancers, and one had mesothelioma, which - in humans - is caused by asbestos exposure.

I read the other post where HH received warnings. There's another issue too. Rush was full of charisma. The Titan already did 3 deep dives and he probably thought it was good to go and ignore the warnings. We don't know what Rush said and dressed it up in order for him to keep his seat. It was likely he trusted Rush and had faith in it.

The problem with a statement like that is... how many explorers are told not to do X or Y, then they do it anyway, and nothing bad happens

This is irrelevant & a daft thing to say. In this case we are talking about at least two LEADING EXPERTS telling the person not to do something BECAUSE the submersible was not safe in the light of basic physics and safety -whereas other comparable crafts were.

Just saying 'don't do X or Y' is not this situation.

@Igneococcus thank you for taking the time to answer my question and post such an interesting link. Portal to another universe sounds about right.
Wow!

I don't think it has an official name @SirQuintusAureliusMaximus
Here is a video on the Smithonian website. They call it a mirror rather than an upside down lake. The one I saw wasn't quite as smooth as this one, and also smaller.

😂