The time it took them to contact for help was a bit long but I suspect they thought it was possible just comms had gone down and that the sub was surfacing somewhere, and they were waiting for surfacing then searching themselves. There slow reaction times could also have been affected by the fact that a raging psychopath/narcissist ran the company and they were fearful of his reaction should they call in the authorities (who Rush was avoiding) unnecessarily.
So not shocked by this (and because it was irrelevant really, that sub was a timebomb and the likelihood was that either comms was lost and they’d pop up somewhere, or it had imploded). What I was shocked about was quite how much was ignored. I knew there was obvious hubris involved - I had thought that Rush had ignored warnings about the use of carbon fibre (which anyone knows is super strong until it isn’t when it can just shatter) and placed too much faith in his sensors to give a warning of this about to happen - I had assumed that his sensors warned them too late and they didn’t have time to get to the surface ie they weren’t as good/effective as he had hoped they were. But I was shocked that basically that wasn’t the case - sub materials had completely failed testing, the sensors were giving warnings that it was going to fail which were ignored, and tbh you didn’t need the sensors as loud cracks were audible to all, and then to leave the sub out in freezing temperatures like that is beyond negligent. I am shocked he was happy to ignore all of this and risk his own life, he must have been that deluded about his own “theories” he ignored even his own warning system. How he did that when he repeatedly saw what happened in the pressure testing I have no idea.
What I still don’t understand properly (and of course he can’t tell us now sadly) is why someone of PH Nageolet’s calibre was involved. He was lending the whole project credibility by his presence and the comment about keeping people safe by being there doesn’t make sense to me. The thing was a ticking timebomb that no one could make safe, he must have known this. I do wonder what his thinking was.
It will interesting to hear what comes out of the review as given Rush did all sorts you avoid having any oversight I do wonder what you could do to avoid someone doing something similar again. One thing that should change is that when someone whistleblows about significant safety issues, those issues should be investigated whether or not someone withdraws their complaint and there should be protections for whistleblowers from the the sort of malicious lawsuits that Rush took out to get rid of the problem. Those sorts of tactics shouldn’t be allowed to work. Hopefully some changes come out as a result of this.