New evidence strongly suggests that OceanGate’s submersible, which imploded and killed all passengers on its way to the Titanic wreck, was unfit for the journey. The CEO, Stockton Rush, bought discounted carbon fiber past its shelf life from Boeing, which experts say is a terrible choice for a deep-sea vessel. This likely played a role in the submersible’s tragic demise.
reading this almost feels like it was merely an effort to perform the most expensive suicide ever.
But then again, it could also seems to have been stupidity and a failure to listen to experts.
Man seems to have been unable to get his head out his own ass and was basically hearing every issue and going “this is fine”
Seems like in any case, he deserves a Darwin award, just sucks that other people went down with him.
In this case, not suicide, but stupidity. You read the things this Stockton man was saying around and you notice it was a case of not knowing what he was dealing with. He also bragged that the certifications and security inspections were actually a burden to advance technology.
“If we make the sub less safe that will be better” -Rush Stockton (paraphrased)
my brother in christ safety IS advancement. the safer the sub the deeper it can go (kinda), which could allow room to introduce other things into the sub like a fancier cabin.
I’m beginning to suspect this Stockton man had a case of amooth brain…
That guy was a backyard inventor and charlatan, like those 19th century backyard aircraft inventors. It’s one thing to take yourself out of the gene pool through your own recklessness, it’s another to take others with you.
Rush bypassed over a hundred years of engineering lessons learned the hard way with the rationale it stifles innovation. He even fired and sued one of his own employees for calling him out on it. The sub had zero certifications and then he lied to customers about it saying his designs were approved by NASA and Boeing who never even heard of the guy.
Aside from the lack of safety engineering and lack of proper fail-safes in his design, there’s a reason engineers don’t use carbon fiber composites in subs. They have a tendency to delaminate. When used in aircraft, composites have to be examined and certified at a regular service interval with special inspection equipment.
I think that sub was an accident waiting to happen from day one. The hull probably failed due to inspection negligence and a failure to detect delamination. That’s even if the hull could have been rated properly for 4km. If it wasn’t the hull, it would been one of the other jury-rigged systems.
I can’t believe people smart enough to acquire the wealth for that excursion weren’t smart enough to check out the qualifications of the company hosting it. I think it was plainly obvious just looking at the sub yourself. A navigation system that consists of a consumer laptop PC and Logitech gaming controller should have been a dead giveaway.
learned the hard way
He learned nothing, he is dead. Hopefully others will learn from that.
“Safety regulations are written in blood”
That’s putting it harshly.
Would be interesting so see a statistic on deep water sub excursions versus fatalities. Probably somewhere between astronauts and WWII bomber crews.
There is little regulation for deep sea subs since they operate in international waters out of jurisdiction. You can pretty much do whatever the hell you want out there. If someone manufactures within jurisdiction, regulations may apply. Though they would be easy to circumvent.
Definitely good safety and engineering practice is written in blood, but regulations are not always enforceable.
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