OceanGate Expeditions Titan DSV loss

Orionblamblam said:
He's busy.
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Well, I guess that really sucks for the folks in that them there white Tic Tac undersea capsule - wait what??? I wish no harm whatsoever on anybody, including the humans currently trapped in that wretched device, who I dearly hope for to survive, but for any at least somewhat sentient beings Darwin's Law of Evolution applies accordingly - Caveat Emptor...
 
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They heard underwater noises, and the ocean is vast, and noisy... geez, now the Daily Merde is drumming the hype and spinning a happy end.

(Nota Bene: I'm not the kind of bastard wishing them death. Might be fun to see that boss SOB having to explain to justice how he cut corners. Unfortunately, you can bet he would hail the close call as a) a tribute to his submarine sound design and b) a heroic story with a happy end)
 
The sunken ships are a death trap for inexperienced divers who seek thrills, entangled in the rusty and corroded structures there are thousands of nylon lines lost by sport fishermen and remains of nets that over time have been hooked among the remains, inside the hulls there are thousands of tons of silt and decomposing organic remains that swirl with swimming movements of the diver and completely cancel the visibility preventing him from finding the exit until he runs out of oxygen. I do not understand the morbid interest that these underwater graves have for tourists, they do not behave as they would in a cemetery.

https://www.wahoo2001.com/Andrea Doria divers deaths list.htm
 
Archibald said:
They heard underwater noises, and the ocean is vast, and noisy... geez, now the Daily Merde is drumming the hype and spinning a happy end.

(Nota Bene: I'm not the kind of bastard wishing them death. Might be fun to see that boss SOB having to explain to justice how he cut corners. Unfortunately, you can bet he would hail the close call as a) a tribute to his submarine sound design and b) a heroic story with a happy end)
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I really hope they get found in time, so that this waste of oxygen gets sued into poverty. And then jailed for fraud and depraved indifference to human lives.
 
Archibald said:
They heard underwater noises, and the ocean is vast, and noisy... geez, now the Daily Merde is drumming the hype and spinning a happy end.
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If it's really every 30 minutes, starting precisely on the top and half of the hour, that's pretty suggestive of a deliberate signal. We don't know if the last bit is true, but that's what I'd do in their shoes.

OTOH, even if it is a signal, if they are not surfaced, there's probably sweet FA that can be done in the necessary timeframe. There isn't a lot of deep water salvage gear around designed to recover multi-ton objects from 4000 meters.

I caught a follow-up interview by that CBS reporter David Pogue who took the trip last year. He said there were supposedly seven separate return-to-surface techniques -- thrusters, droppable sandbags, lead pipe ballast, inflatable balloons, jettisonable landing legs, and a failsafe involving dissolving links holding the sandbag ballast that should work even with the crew totally incapacitated. Of course, if it's entangled with something on the bottom, none of those will work and they're probably SOL.

 
TomS said:
Archibald said:
They heard underwater noises, and the ocean is vast, and noisy... geez, now the Daily Merde is drumming the hype and spinning a happy end.
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If it's really every 30 minutes, starting precisely on the top and half of the hour, that's pretty suggestive of a deliberate signal. We don't know if the last bit is true, but that's what I'd do in their shoes.

OTOH, even if it is a signal, if they are not surfaced, there's probably sweet FA that can be done in the necessary timeframe. There isn't a lot of deep water salvage gear around designed to recover multi-ton objects from 4000 meters.

I caught a follow-up interview by that CBS reporter David Pogue who took the trip last year. He said there were supposedly seven separate return-to-surface techniques -- thrusters, droppable sandbags, lead pipe ballast, inflatable balloons, jettisonable landing legs, and a failsafe involving dissolving links holding the sandbag ballast that should work even with the crew totally incapacitated. Of course, if it's entangled with something on the bottom, none of those will work and they're probably SOL.

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The fail-safe is supposed to activate after 16 hours underwater. If they're not on the surface, that sub is trapped by something and requires a rescue.
 
Scott Kenny said:
The fail-safe is supposed to activate after 16 hours underwater. If they're not on the surface, that sub is trapped by something and requires a rescue.
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Imagine the uproar if the problem is that the sub crashed *into* the Titanic and caused the wreck to collapsed onto it.
 
iirc one tourist submersible landed on the stern (or the rear of the front half of the ship) causing it to collapse.
 
Banging a wrench on a carbon fiber hull would sound more like a dull, drum-like thump---not a twang...one would think.

Where is the Academic Keldish with her Mir submersibles that Cameron used---or the Alvin's host ship?

Pity the Johnson's Sea Link is no longer operational.
 
publiusr said:
Banging a wrench on a carbon fiber hull would sound more like a dull, drum-like thump---not a twang...one would think.

Where is the Academic Keldish with her Mir submersibles that Cameron used---or the Alvin's host ship?

Pity the Johnson's Sea Link is no longer operational.
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They do have that titanium front end to beat on.
 
I dont wish anyone a sad end, but it seems amazing that presumably clever billionaires when considering a tourist trip dont review safety etc. Which on this project should have come back with a 0% rating.

Even accepting that they are bolted inside, as unchangeable, some aids to locating them, or signalling to the surface, would without too much thought or submarine design experience, seem to be a good idea.

So 2 coloured buoys, that could be released, green means we have some problem, red we are stuck/need help? With 4000 metres of string to guide the surface team in?

Also commercially, I'd have a rescue sub on the support ship, and charge $500K, rather than $250K without rescue, unlikely to make any difference to the billionaires thought processes, in terms of value.

Be very sad if this a fatigue issue, given the aviation and submarine world seems to have conquered such issues, mostly.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Scott Kenny said:
The fail-safe is supposed to activate after 16 hours underwater. If they're not on the surface, that sub is trapped by something and requires a rescue.
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Imagine the uproar if the problem is that the sub crashed *into* the Titanic and caused the wreck to collapsed onto it.
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It. Is. A. Decaying. Wreck. So?
 
It will be a pile of rust in a century, right? Anoxic conditions at benthic depths are easier on wood, no?
 
Scott Kenny said:
publiusr said:
Banging a wrench on a carbon fiber hull would sound more like a dull, drum-like thump---not a twang...one would think.

Where is the Academic Keldish with her Mir submersibles that Cameron used---or the Alvin's host ship?

Pity the Johnson's Sea Link is no longer operational.
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They do have that titanium front end to beat on.
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Beat me to it.
Scott Kenny said:
martinbayer said:
Orionblamblam said:
Scott Kenny said:
The fail-safe is supposed to activate after 16 hours underwater. If they're not on the surface, that sub is trapped by something and requires a rescue.
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Imagine the uproar if the problem is that the sub crashed *into* the Titanic and caused the wreck to collapsed onto it.
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It. Is. A. Decaying. Wreck. So?
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It is a crypt.

They basically defaced a graveyard.
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It is an accident site - no more, no less. Crypts and graveyards are deliberately designed/laid out and built/developed. No sanctimonious whitewashing of colossal (and fatal) engineering blunders by trying to declare them as anything else than they actually are, please.
 
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I'm a little confused as to why they'd only signal every half hour. If it were me I'd be banging out sos every minute.

I'm a little concerned that the fail safes haven't brought it to the surface already if, as TomS says, it has a number fitted.
 
jeffb said:
I'm a little confused as to why they'd only signal every half hour. If it were me I'd be banging out sos every minute.

I'm a little concerned that the fail safes haven't brought it to the surface already if, as TomS says, it has a number fitted.
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Conserving oxygen, as a guess. They presumably (by now) realise any rescue is going to take time to organise, so an extra hour of oxygen could make a difference.
 
Realisticly, if the sub is located at Titanic depth, and the crew is alive, are the chances of them being rescued before their oxygen runs out greater than zero? And if all seven of the failsafes worked, and the sub is surfaced, are their chances any better?
 
jstar said:
Realisticly, if the sub is located at Titanic depth, and the crew is alive, are the chances of them being rescued before their oxygen runs out greater than zero? And if all seven of the failsafes worked, and the sub is surfaced, are their chances any better?
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4 options:
1- they surfaced and are lost - MPA have been up.
2- Crushed or flooded, no survivors
3- Stuck on the bottom, some of the kit being sent can lift them - in time
4- same, but not in time.

Any more options?
 
Fluff said:
jstar said:
Realisticly, if the sub is located at Titanic depth, and the crew is alive, are the chances of them being rescued before their oxygen runs out greater than zero? And if all seven of the failsafes worked, and the sub is surfaced, are their chances any better?
Click to expand...
4 options:
1- they surfaced and are lost - MPA have been up.
2- Crushed or flooded, no survivors
3- Stuck on the bottom, some of the kit being sent can lift them - in time
4- same, but not in time.

Any more options?
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5 - Trapped *under* Titanic wreckage (they drove into the wreck and it collapsed on them)

If that's the case, even if the sub is intact, I don't see how any sort of rescue is feasible. Not like there's cranes and bulldozers down there.

6 - They were never there: the moment they left sonar range of the ship, they diverted to a new course and were picked up by another ship/sub. Someone wanted to start a new life, or someone wanted to kidnap some rich folk...
 
Orionblamblam said:
I remain confounded about the use of carbon fiber in compression. Surely a titanium or steel hull would be better; the extra weight would be a *bonus* here.
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Here is Graeme Hawkes talking about carbon fiber for a full ocean depth pressure hull (31:41) . There are... interesting failure modes when using carbon for pressure hulls and it's very difficult to find problems, and there may be additional problems created by cycling the pressure load (i.e. repeated dives). To use carbon for this you really need to know what you're doing and be careful.

View: https://youtu.be/qZ7wL4gIzCE?t=1901
 
Gotta say, it's a golden opportunity to test out the search/detection/location/recovery capabilities of NATO (being in the north atlantic and all) under real-world conditions, and one hell of a triumph if they pull it off.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Cannonfodder43 said:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dka29FSZac&t=70s&ab_channel=SubBrief

A summary by Sub Brief as of 6/20/2023.
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I think this might be the most important - and damning - bit from that:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671372833979785217
View: https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1671372833979785217
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The guy didn't want to pay experienced, credentialed sub engineers and REALLY didn't want them telling him his crackpot ideas were going to get people killed. The "inspiration" talk was his smoke screen.
 
Archibald said:
Look ma ! A Richard Branson of submarines ! (2007 & 2014 Virgin accidents, cough cough). That miserable SOB was complaining about government safety regulations, now he will all too happy governments look for his rickety sub - or at least, what's left of it...

My bet he soon starts spinning the recovery efforts a) as an heroic story, if successfull or b) as a noble sacrifice, if those people are dead.

obscenely safe
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Well I hope he hasn't been obscenely crushed... :rolleyes:
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He was onboard so....:eek:
 
Orionblamblam said:
Fluff said:
jstar said:
Realisticly, if the sub is located at Titanic depth, and the crew is alive, are the chances of them being rescued before their oxygen runs out greater than zero? And if all seven of the failsafes worked, and the sub is surfaced, are their chances any better?
Click to expand...
4 options:
1- they surfaced and are lost - MPA have been up.
2- Crushed or flooded, no survivors
3- Stuck on the bottom, some of the kit being sent can lift them - in time
4- same, but not in time.

Any more options?
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5 - Trapped *under* Titanic wreckage (they drove into the wreck and it collapsed on them)

If that's the case, even if the sub is intact, I don't see how any sort of rescue is feasible. Not like there's cranes and bulldozers down there.

6 - They were never there: the moment they left sonar range of the ship, they diverted to a new course and were picked up by another ship/sub. Someone wanted to start a new life, or someone wanted to kidnap some rich folk...
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Sadly I had considered a PR stunt, to drum up business. Humans huh.
 
Fluff said:
Sadly I had considered a PR stunt, to drum up business. Humans huh.
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While that's certainly not impossible (remember the jackass who bailed out of his light airplane as a YouTube stunt), it would be a career-ending stunt. Whoever thunk it up would be not only sued into oblivion, but I'm sure there are a whole encyclopedia of laws being violated.
 
Moose said:
The guy didn't want to pay experienced, credentialed sub engineers and REALLY didn't want them telling him his crackpot ideas were going to get people killed. The "inspiration" talk was his smoke screen.
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The DEI/ESG scam is a smoke screen for many things. It's a great way to avoid having to find the best, that's for sure. But for a company this small and niche, that doesn't seem like a necessary or even useful grift. I suspect he was being honest when he told the world he's a moron.

I've worked with and for people who didn't want to be told they're wrong by experts. But they often hire them anyway (because "I've hired the best" looks great in PR), and then simply don't listen to them. The phrase "there are no safety concerns!" will always echo down the corridors of my memory, right next to the experience of pressure vessels tearing themselves into high velocity shrapnel.
 
Unfortunately, this has trends I have seen before--I think of Roger Boisjoly and the NASA decisions to launch because they got away with erosion to "Criticality 1R" items relating to the SRBs for so long, and no one died, that it was inevitable they would choose the one wrong day to engage in the start of a mission. Here, on the Titan submersible , I have read that there were several previous descents that the communication connections with the surface crapped out completely. And yet, they continued to dive without making the necessary corrections.

The one wrong day.
 
TomS said:
If it's really every 30 minutes, starting precisely on the top and half of the hour, that's pretty suggestive of a deliberate signal. We don't know if the last bit is true, but that's what I'd do in their shoes.
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I heard somewhere this morning that signalling on the hour and at the half is actually SOP for crew trapped in 'downed' subs, so hopefully this is good news.
 
jstar said:
Realisticly, if the sub is located at Titanic depth, and the crew is alive, are the chances of them being rescued before their oxygen runs out greater than zero? And if all seven of the failsafes worked, and the sub is surfaced, are their chances any better?
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Chances are marginally better than zero if they're down deep, if another minisub can get there in time.

With things like P3 Orions up, if they're on the surface they're highly likely to be found. The radar on a P3 is designed to track a 6" diameter steel pole sticking 6-10 feet out of the water, a 6.5m long thing with 2m titanium endcaps will show up like a house fire. At that point, the only problem is getting a ship with a decent sized davit free to pick them up. But basically everything within 300 miles or so is already converging on the search area, so someone should be close by to grab them.
 
greenmartian2017 said:
Unfortunately, this has trends I have seen before--I think of Roger Boisjoly and the NASA decisions to launch because they got away with erosion to "Criticality 1R" items relating to the SRBs for so long, and no one died, that it was inevitable they would choose the one wrong day to engage in the start of a mission. Here, on the Titan submersible , I have read that there were several previous descents that the communication connections with the surface crapped out completely. And yet, they continued to dive without making the necessary corrections.

The one wrong day.
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Talking about space, it reminds me of Branson twin accidents - 2007 when the rocket engine went kaboom, and 2014 when the vehicle crashed. The Wikipedia entry I linked confirms that Rush (that name, really !) was firmly on the Branson side, except much worse, with even less money. Plus submarines don't fall from the sky crashing people and properties downrange, so there is no FAA watchdog there.
 
Archibald said:
Plus submarines don't fall from the sky crashing people and properties downrange, so there is no FAA watchdog there.
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Who would be in charge of certifying a vessel, then? The Coast Guard/Department of Transportation (equivalent) of whichever country the boat is registered in?
 
No idea, honestly. Then again, Mr Rush got away with it by saying something like "My submarine is so innovative, it can't be certified, so accept the risk and bit the bullet." (facepalm)
Reminds me of the old joke
One man falls from the top of the Empire State Building. As he falls, he says repeatedly "so far, so good, so far, so good..."
 
Orionblamblam said:
6 - They were never there: the moment they left sonar range of the ship, they diverted to a new course and were picked up by another ship/sub. Someone wanted to start a new life, or someone wanted to kidnap some rich folk...
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Its funny, but i too thought of 6 as a theory today, which will no doubt gain traction as a conspiracy theory if they never find it.
 
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