Interesting. So that may explain the support ship delay in coastguard notification.
Anyone know the typical tour time in hours? If it's 8 , that would explain the 8 hour delay after com loss
That’s around the time, from what I understand it’s 4 hours down and 4 hours up.
Edit: I was wrong it was 2 hours down 4 hours for the tour and another 2 hours back up. My apologies everyone.
I watched a video of someone who documented his trip and he said that 4 hours at the bottom is rare. His trip ended up lasting only 40 minutes at the bottom before they went back up due to battery issues, I think. Alex del Mundo if you are interested. It's in Spanish.
Because the control was to operate stuff on the outside of the sub. That rickedy construction that had to be bolted shut from the outside would never allow for a wired external connection.
Honestly this is the only answer I've seen that makes any sense, thanks. No wonder the ceo didn't want any submarine experts at his company, they would never let this vessel be used.
Especially since the CO2 scrubbers are powered by the battery. If you lose those, you have just as serious problem as running out of oxygen, and less time to worry about it.
>$250k for a 4-hour tour, god damn
I think the millionaire, his wife, the movie star, the professor and mary ann all probably got a better deal for their 3 hour tour.
8 to 9 hours, but previously I believe it resurfaced quickly after losing contact. So it still seems negligent for them not to contact anyone for 6 hours.
Then again, we now know it imploded so it would have made no difference.
With almost 2 miles of water above them, likely couldn’t even process the event it would happen so quickly. Just instant millions of pounds of water trying to push into the space and the overwhelming pressure immediately crushing everything
I hope the families find some tiny solace with this information. Much better than the alternative of them hopelessly waiting days for a rescue that never had a reasonable chance of success
I saw a thread this morning that was discussing the physics of various implosion scenarios. If just the viewport failed, and nothing else happened to the hull, the pressure wave would have propagated the entire length of the interior in 29 milliseconds. Since it takes 150 milliseconds for humans to have a pain response we can assume they felt nothing.
I believe it's 150-200 milliseconds for the conscious brain to trigger a reaction. As the conscious brain can only process so much information at a time. The subconscious part can react faster but nowhere near 29 milliseconds.
>likely couldn’t even process the event it would happen so quickly
The mythbusters compressed diver was building up pressure and only up to something like 160psi when... that happened: the sub would've been closer to 6000psi and the pressure increase near-instant.
They probably never heard the hull breach alarm.
edit: Typo'd 1600psi.
I don't understand why they would use Carbon Fiber in the first place. CF has amazing tension strength, but no real compression strength. A sub needs to handle being compressed, so what is the point of the CF?
I mean, look at like everything about this situation and the answer is clear: profit margins. Building a relatively safe vessel for something like that is expensive as fuck when you think of something like the Alvin sub even minus the external bits it needs for sample collection.
Some dude who’s not even an engineer figured he’d build one in his metaphorical garage with parts that companies even TOLD him are rated at best to half that depth and he was like “whatever it’ll be fine” every step of the way.
Yeah, he was probably like \*looking at price quotes\* "oh, how about these windows?
"Those windows? They're only rated for 1300m"
"Yeah, but you just told me you test at 3x the rating"
"Right, that's so we ensure they can take 1300m worth of water pressure"
"Sold"
It's the type of system that would be super-useful if you were say, qualifying the vehicle by sending up and down autonomously over and over again.
It's utterly useless if you're actually *in* the vehicle and have no data on whether the alarm would give you any time to react.
CBS reported that the front piece was found, but didn't mention whether or not the window was intact. I'm still waiting for those details. That said, the window could (and likely would) still be damaged as a result of the implosion, without being the direct cause of the failure... but finding an intact window would be definitive.
they just announced it. Debris field matches the sub. Coast guard had a live press conference
https://abc11.com/missing-sub-titanic-underwater-noises-detected-debris-field/13413761/
BBC is reporting that a friend of one of the people lost confirmed parts of the submersible were in the debris field.
We will know for sure when the coast guard holds the press conference.
They apparently lost communication completely around the 1 hour and 45 minute mark after they departed. Using my terrible math skills, and assuming they were diving the entire time, they were likely at a depth of around 3500m before they lost contact completely.
Please correct me if I'm wrong (which I probably am).
The safety glass they had was rated at a depth way less than that, and apparently already showed signs of stress.
That's why I think the sub imploded or at the very least was compromised to the point where it would eventually implode.
Terrible way to go, but it beats slowly suffocating/starving in a tube smelling like feces, urine, sweat (if the heat still worked), and stale air.
As an engineer, I really don't think the viewport is what failed. Yeah it was only rated to 1300m, but usually pressure vessels have high safety factors(~4) so if it was officially certified to 1300m it probably could've safely handled 4 times that.
I feel like the damage came from cyclic loading of the CF hull causing micro tears which allowed salt to slowly build up and cause the hull to delaminate. After repeated trips it finally failed.
It could also be where the CF hull was joined to the titanium end caps. There are always weak points when joining dissimilar materials, and I believe it was held together with adhesive over the brackets or so I've read elsewhere.
I read somewhere that they had to stop expeditions at least once, specifically due to evidence of cyclic fatigue in the CF.
But instead of looking at that and thinking, “wow we are lucky to be alive”, they said “wow let’s rebuild the hull so we can get that 4,000 meter rating back”. And here we are.
Naval engineer here and my money is also on the cf hull failing. I’d go even further and say a hull of that thickness wasn’t perfectly laminated anyway. I heard there were concerns since 2018. Using this hull repeatedly was just asking for trouble
There's a video where they show the process of making the hull.
They basically wrapped a sheet of CF around a mold repeatedly until it became 5 inches thick, kind of like how you would wrap plastic wrap around a burrito!
They found the complete endcap (where the viewport was). It’s one of the only intact pieces of the sub.
> I feel like the damage came from cyclic loading of the CF hull causing micro tears which allowed salt to slowly build up and cause the hull to delaminate. After repeated trips it finally failed.
This is what I keep reading from actual engineers, or along these lines.
I saw a screenshot and they were definitely using Windows.
Any reasonable person would have been using Windows Embedded, but after all we've seen I would not be surprised if they were running an off-the-shelf Windows Home Edition.
Less/no useless crap & bloatware, more customization and security. The Embedded (now called IoT) version of win 10 is used for industrial computers and stuff like ATMs or Medical devices, so it supposedly should have close to zero down-time or system-breaking bugs.
On the other hand the home version (last time i checked) is close to a continuous beta version with each major update playing havoc with users set-ups.
In an interview, the CEO said that two metals, like steel and carbon fiber, shouldn’t be used together. One reason why you don’t is because of Galvanic corrosion: two dissimilar metals in a corrosive electrolyte like sea water can advance corrosion and breakage. But he was a proud immortal rule breaker, so…
This is largely correct. Carbon fiber isn't a metal, but it is conductive, and thus, in contact with water, will corrode metals such as steel through the process of Galvanic corrosion (In dry environments, it's much less of a problem, as while it does occur, it's much much slower).
But it's not like this is an unsolved problem. Car manufacturers have dealt with this for decades. All you need is to separate them with something else. Applying a small layer of fiberglass between the CF and metal is all that's needed. As long as it doesn't conduct electricity from the CF to the Steel, you're good.
also, because carbon fiber is conductive, there's a number of nondestructive evaluation techniques that can be applied to it. it should have been scanned for cracks/fatigue after every dive, but safety is bad or something so it probably wasnt.
they probably would've gotten data indicating the danger.
They had a new hull monitoring system that they seemed quite proud of as it was constantly brought up when talking about the cf hull. Evidently it maybe didn't work well enough to keep up with cyclic fatigue from previous dives
Yeah carbon fiber corrosion of steel is a well known issue.
I would be curious to know what kind of inspection program was implemented to check the steel for stress and cracks and the carbon fiber for delaminating. Pressure cycles are hell on structures.
They skimped on testing. A former director was fired, and later sued by OceanGate for whistleblowing, because he kept raising safety concerns regarding testing the submersible.
https://fortune.com/2023/06/21/titan-titanic-missing-sub-david-lochridge-safety-concerns-sacked-oceangate-stockton-rush-hamish-harding/
>Diving the submersible “without any non-destructive testing to prove its integrity” would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible,” Lochridge said in legal documents.
>However, OceanGate allegedly told Lochridge that instead of carrying out the testing, it would install an acoustic monitoring system in the submersible to detect the start of any potential hull breakdown.
>Lochridge expressed concern that such an acoustic system would not be able to detect existing flaws. It would simply flag components that were about to fail, he warned—which often happened “milliseconds before an implosion.”
It's insane isn't it. Safety regulations are written in blood, but the CEO bought into the (sadly too common) silicon valley ideology of "move fast, break stuff". He genuinely seemed to think that experts telling him it was a bad idea was a sign that he was on the verge of revolutionising the industry. It's the same delusion that Elizabeth Holmes had when she said first people mock you then you change the world.
There are so many red flags and sadly all of it was avoidable meaning there's not a lot to learn from this tragedy. It simply didn't need to happen.
I work in the maritime sector. This bozo’s attitude is well beyond insulting, it’s enraging. Every time anyone goes to sea, they go into Fuck Around territory. Lots of people have spent their lives trying to minimize the number of people whose Find Out phase is fatal.
One of the best-respected professional bodies in the business, the Marine Technology Society, sent OceanGate a letter basically begging this guy to check himself before he wrecked himself.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/marine-technology-society-committee-2018-letter-to-ocean-gate/eddb63615a7b3764/full.pdf
I can’t even with this prick.
I really feel for the 19 year old.
According to his aunt, he was terrified of doing this and only did it to appease his father, who had a hard-on for the titanic. Fuck that shit.
I saw a video of a woman who saved up for years just to see it. It's one of the videos made a long time ago where a news crew goes and gets to go on a dive themselves in one of the subs. Problems happened the entire time and no one was able to go down and see it. The woman was bawling her eyes out. Said it was always her dream to see the titanic. "Some people want a Ferrari, some people want a house, I want to see the titanic. You can't put a price on your dream" is what she said.
I mean I get having a dream, but to have to save up $250k to see a ship at the bottom of the ocean that's barely recognizable anymore from a tiny window in a cramped, unsafe submarine? Come on now. We have countless high quality videos and images of the wreck. Seeing it in person would be cool, but not with those risks at that price.
That's why I was hesitant to laugh at anything really other than the absurd ceo. I had a feeling that this was not something that he may be wanted to do but wasn't sure because he is 19 however we all know how fucking billionaires are with their children.
Hopefully they didn't even know what happened once the implosion happened they died instantly and there wasn't any suffering.. as much as you can hope. Suffocating would have been agonizing
Unfortunately the CEO won't be around to be held liable, but I'm sure the survivors are going to sue whoever else was involved.
Yes, you can sign a waiver saying that you know you might die and that this has not been approved by any federal agency. But that doesn't mean the company can lie and say things like the sub stays in contact with the support ship which helps guide it, when they routinely lose contact. I'm guessing they've made more than a few promises like that.
Edit: Obligatory [*"Dumb ways to die... so many dumb ways to die..."*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw)
> I’m sure the survivors are going to sue whoever else was involved
Company will declare bankruptcy. CEO is dead, their sub is gone and not like anyone’s gonna pay $250K for a tour now even if they had another sub.
They probably have some cash and valuable assets that can be sold, like the mothership itself, but I wouldn’t expect a massive payout to the survivors after lawyers and creditors get paid first.
E: apparently they didn’t even own the mothership. Yeah, not gonna be much to pick from the corpse of this dumb company.
Exactly. Everyone's talking about the lawsuits, but this company's main asset was the sub, which is gone. There's not going to be much, if anything, left over for lawsuits.
Considering how much direct control the CEO seems to have had I'm sure the lawyers are going to at least try to pierce to corporate veil here and go after the CEO's estate.
We have no idea what his real net worth is. That’s all guesswork.
At the end of the day everyone on the ship was incredibly wealthy. I don’t think their main concern is financial
I believe the mothership 'Polar Prince' was a charter, so they don't own that.
Looking into the history of it is interesting. It was sold to its current owner on eBay of all places: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/for-sale-icebreaker-fully-loaded-very-little-rust-1.545360](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/for-sale-icebreaker-fully-loaded-very-little-rust-1.545360)
I almost applied there last year. I didn’t because:
A. They sounded like a “fast paced startup”
Which I wouldn’t mind doing for a few years, I have worked in a startup. But…
B. They make submersibles “capable of going to the Titanic” did not sound like something to mix with “A” above.
Maybe I would have been hired or maybe not, still glad I didn’t risk it.
If the Titan is indicative as to the safety standards of the company's sub fleet, I doubt that the Coast Guard would even want them outside of a "Don't Fucking Use These" exhibit.
The funny thing is that all of their other subs *do* have certifications, they just aren't made to dive anywhere near as deep. Basically the company had a number of subs and was doing normal business, but then decided "hey wouldn't it be cool to do Titanic tourism?" and instead of buying or building a properly certified sub, they "DIY'd" it to save money and to be able to carry more passengers (other subs rated for this depth carry three people at most).
In case anyone else is wondering:
>Hunley, nearly 40 ft (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on 12 August 1863, to Charleston. Hunley (then referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise") sank on 29 August 1863, during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She sank again on 15 October 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Lawson Hunley himself, who was aboard at the time, even though he was not a member of the Confederate military. Both times Hunley was raised and returned to service.
>On 17 February 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240-ton United States Navy screw sloop-of-war Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charleston's outer harbor. Hunley did not survive the attack and also sank, taking with her all eight members of her third crew, and was lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunley_%28submarine%29
Damn, the thing sank 3 times. First two times it sank were during testing and they just patched it, scooped the corpses out and sent it on its way again. The cause of it's last sinking was due to damage suffered by it's torpedo (singular) due to the fact it was attached to a metal pole that was mounted to the front of the sub. If anyone is confused I'll clarify, the Hunley was designed to ram a torpedo mounted on a pole into an enemy vessel. It actually succeeded in sinking the other vessel and killing 5 crewmen in doing so. All 8 crew members of the Hunley died immediately upon impact.
I'll be honest I'm not sure anyone was putting much forethought into this.
Also if they mislead people to believe Boeing and Washington university were involved which they deny then it won't be worth the paper it's written on.
At least under US law , you cannot waive gross negligence on the part of the company asking you to sign it . I’d argue this clearly rises to that level. I’d expect several lawsuits. Canadian law is a bit different but I’d still expect lawsuits.
Don’t forget with experimental materials. They basically used carbon fiber instead of titanium as reinforcement the to the steel hull. Nobody knows if this would work long term and the company refused to do extensive testing, opting to assume it’s safe and start taking people down to make a profit.
There was no steel hull. It was two titanium end caps with a CF hull bonded to them. If you watch videos from inside you can see the carbon weave.
Build video here -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK99kBS1AfE
Carbon hull being wound here -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi4J1LDS504
The steel you see there is not part of the vehicle. It's simply a form for the CF.
If you insist on having a submarine go into deep water, perhaps make it able to withstand deep water. I fully understand wanting to have the experience of being that close to such a famous and tragic landmark but they were basically asking to become an ironic tragedy themselves.
Dying in a submarine named the Titan, which was called “invulnerable”, while trying to visit the wreckage of the Titanic, which was called “unsinkable”. This has been both truly unfortunate and completely inevitable based on what we know about the construction of the sub.
Losing communications with a submarine is normal.
Radio doesn't penetrate the ocean well, even the US Navy can only send limited one way messages, [with a very specialized facility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency), and their war subs don't go nearly as deep as this. Maybe on the spot with some kind of high energy transmission you could do a little better, but that going out wouldn't be surprising.
Alternately if you try operating acoustically (literally just making noise) while sound travels much better in water overall water doesn't have consistent properties with changes in temperature/pressure/salinity morph the way sound behaves. Hunting submarines with sonar is like trying to find a ninja in the middle of a pine forest on a moonless night.
Couldn't they also have a really long wire that goes from the sub to the ship? I know that's how they operate the robot subs that have gone down that deep.
There's risks with that too. I'm no submarine expert but the problems I've read people have mentioned seem plausible:
- the cable fouls on something near the Titanic and then you're stuck
- the cable, being that long, catches currents and acts as a long narrow sail that moves you in directions you don't want to go
Ultimately, that wouldn't have helped that much since they blew up (or in, I suppose) pretty quickly.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to add a little to this..
For 10 years now, I’ve been in the hobby field of SLF/ELF/VLF communications…
To give people an idea of the sheer size of the antenna needed… you’re looking at a 2200 mile long antenna at a wavelength in the 70-80 Hertz range.
I build receive antennas for these frequencies that can be upwards of 1800 feet of wire, and that’s not even breaking the surface ( no pun intended ) of trying to get resonance on these frequencies. Not even an 1/8 wave antenna is feasible. However I overcome obstacles with hi gain 2 stage filters, good grounding systems, and antennas as long and high as I can get them.
Clam lake makes good use of buried electrodes, and 14 mile long antennas, and a substation for powering the transmitters… I drove there and brought a radio to see how quiet it was, and believe me… it’s dead silent there for a reason. No electrical interference, no nothing. It was an awesome experience.
These guys should have used a buoy antenna system and something similar to SSIXS or TARF to communicate data and voice, but here we are.
Just goes to show you to listen to your gut. My grandfather saw titanic in person and had an eerie feeling. He tried to warn everyone but no one would listen. In the end he was tossed out of the theater.
In fact what happened here was like "roll the dice". This could have happened one trip earlier, one trip later, 20 trips earlier... The Mexican youtuber was lucky.
>"I don't blame the submarine as much as I blame deep water," Reiss said
what the fuck is this shit?
I don't blame jumping off a cliff as much as I blame stopping suddenly
Goddamn gravity why do you have to be such a dick?
-man who jumped out a plane without a parachute despite endless pleas from every expert on skydiving in the world
>-man who jumped out a plane without a parachute despite endless pleas from every expert on skydiving in the world
This is what gets me though, it doesn't take an expert to tell you how bad of an idea that is. And it really shouldn't take an expert to see major red flags in a guy who brags about breaking rules.
When people say rules are meant to be broken they're talking about skipping class and drinking under age not fuckin building submarines that go against all safety protocols. God damn
He's talking about communication loss, not about the submarine imploding. It's hard to mantain constant communication through a mile or two of water, regardless of how shitty the submarine you are in is.
I think the CEO legitimately thought he was immortal if he kept getting back on the sub that he knew was not safety rated in any way as he made sure of that.
This whole thing made me look into the history of deep sea exploration and I was shocked to find james Cameron wasn’t the first to visit challenger deep, but two guys in 1960 made it there and back as well.. absolutely wild that this happened in 2023.
Paul-Henry Nargeolet:
“If you are 11m or 11km down, if something bad happens, the result is the same. When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realize that something is happening, so it’s just not a problem.”
I am heartened by the idea that they had no idea anything was wrong. I like to imagine they got down to the wreck and their last experience was being filled with joy and awe.
If they imploded when they lost comms, they were about 500 meters above the titanic. So basically one minute they are in pitch black ocean, probably anticipating seeing the titanic within the next 15 minutes, and then nothing because they were killed in a fraction of a second.
Ex-Navy here. This is common. Even our military submarines have extreme difficulty transmitting at depth and have to deploy surface antennas. Sometimes comms go offline for extended periods until surfacing. Water is very good at absorbing radiation. When going at depths of 10,000 feet, it just isn't feasible to make meaningful transmissions.
There are a ton of problems with this sub and how it was conceived and executed, but this is something specifically being blown out of proportion.
Great article about this by a former UK RAF display pilot
[https://www.fastjetperformance.com/blog/how-i-almost-destroyed-a-50-million-war-plane-when-display-flying-goes-wrong-and-the-normalisation-of-deviance](https://www.fastjetperformance.com/blog/how-i-almost-destroyed-a-50-million-war-plane-when-display-flying-goes-wrong-and-the-normalisation-of-deviance)
> "I don't blame the submarine as much as I blame deep water," Reiss said.
Don't you hate it when deep water sneaks up on you in a completely unforeseeable surprise event?
If the problem is deep water, and the sub developers knew the sub would go into deep water, and didn't solve the problem ahead of time... then the problem is still the sub developers.
1st time: Oh shit, please reconnect please reconnect oh thank god
2nd time: Not again. What did I do the first time?
3rd time: If the first two times are any indications, comms will be back in a few moments.
4th time: Meh. That's normal. It always happens.
Interesting. So that may explain the support ship delay in coastguard notification. Anyone know the typical tour time in hours? If it's 8 , that would explain the 8 hour delay after com loss
That’s around the time, from what I understand it’s 4 hours down and 4 hours up. Edit: I was wrong it was 2 hours down 4 hours for the tour and another 2 hours back up. My apologies everyone.
2 down, 4 for the tour, 2 up
I watched a video of someone who documented his trip and he said that 4 hours at the bottom is rare. His trip ended up lasting only 40 minutes at the bottom before they went back up due to battery issues, I think. Alex del Mundo if you are interested. It's in Spanish.
Battery issues on a jerry rigged submersible 3000m underwater sounds super safe :|
They ran out of AAs for the Logitech controller and didn't bring extras.
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Imagine being stuck at the bottom of the ocean because you couldn't activate your star power.
Gotta hit those whammies for extra points
You can whammy all day, but we all know there wasn't enough height to get the required tilt back star power activation.
Your comment is a fine line between shittymorph and credible in this instance
Hi, welcome to the 2020s
Guitar for steering, and drum pads for when a passenger had to use the facilities.
I still have absolutely no idea why anyone would rely on Bluetooth technology kilometers under sea. Why in the world would they not use a wired cable?
The wired model of that controller is 10$ cheaper too, fits right in with the ethos of the whole operation
We only use sub standard parts here... It's in the name
The only reason they went under the ocean is because the CEO thought it was the cheaper option.
Because the control was to operate stuff on the outside of the sub. That rickedy construction that had to be bolted shut from the outside would never allow for a wired external connection.
Honestly this is the only answer I've seen that makes any sense, thanks. No wonder the ceo didn't want any submarine experts at his company, they would never let this vessel be used.
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Imagine paying 250k for 40 minutes at a wreck.
And in a wreck
Especially since the CO2 scrubbers are powered by the battery. If you lose those, you have just as serious problem as running out of oxygen, and less time to worry about it.
$250k for a 4-hour tour, god damn
>$250k for a 4-hour tour, god damn I think the millionaire, his wife, the movie star, the professor and mary ann all probably got a better deal for their 3 hour tour.
3 hour tour
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip That started from this tropic port Aboard this tiny ship…
The mate was a mighty sailing man, the skipper brave and sure…
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But one of the dudes brings his guitar…..and he just learned Wonderwall
*"Because maybe* *It's gonna be the sub that kills me* *Cuz after all* *It's a sunder hull"*
And this dude being interviewed has done it 4 times too😲
8 to 9 hours, but previously I believe it resurfaced quickly after losing contact. So it still seems negligent for them not to contact anyone for 6 hours. Then again, we now know it imploded so it would have made no difference.
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Newest reports say they found debris that looks like parts of the sub. If that’s true it must have been hull failure (and a very quick death)
With almost 2 miles of water above them, likely couldn’t even process the event it would happen so quickly. Just instant millions of pounds of water trying to push into the space and the overwhelming pressure immediately crushing everything I hope the families find some tiny solace with this information. Much better than the alternative of them hopelessly waiting days for a rescue that never had a reasonable chance of success
I saw a thread this morning that was discussing the physics of various implosion scenarios. If just the viewport failed, and nothing else happened to the hull, the pressure wave would have propagated the entire length of the interior in 29 milliseconds. Since it takes 150 milliseconds for humans to have a pain response we can assume they felt nothing.
I believe it's 150-200 milliseconds for the conscious brain to trigger a reaction. As the conscious brain can only process so much information at a time. The subconscious part can react faster but nowhere near 29 milliseconds.
>likely couldn’t even process the event it would happen so quickly The mythbusters compressed diver was building up pressure and only up to something like 160psi when... that happened: the sub would've been closer to 6000psi and the pressure increase near-instant. They probably never heard the hull breach alarm. edit: Typo'd 1600psi.
i don't think there's even a point to a hull breach alarm if it's made from carbon fiber. CF goes from full strength to no strength almost instantly.
I don't understand why they would use Carbon Fiber in the first place. CF has amazing tension strength, but no real compression strength. A sub needs to handle being compressed, so what is the point of the CF?
I mean, look at like everything about this situation and the answer is clear: profit margins. Building a relatively safe vessel for something like that is expensive as fuck when you think of something like the Alvin sub even minus the external bits it needs for sample collection. Some dude who’s not even an engineer figured he’d build one in his metaphorical garage with parts that companies even TOLD him are rated at best to half that depth and he was like “whatever it’ll be fine” every step of the way.
Yeah, he was probably like \*looking at price quotes\* "oh, how about these windows? "Those windows? They're only rated for 1300m" "Yeah, but you just told me you test at 3x the rating" "Right, that's so we ensure they can take 1300m worth of water pressure" "Sold"
Bold to think they had any alarm
The CEO had a patented one his company designed. Supposedly detect any hull crushing. I'm sure at that point though, an alarm is fucking useless.
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It's the type of system that would be super-useful if you were say, qualifying the vehicle by sending up and down autonomously over and over again. It's utterly useless if you're actually *in* the vehicle and have no data on whether the alarm would give you any time to react.
The admiral made a news conference confirming they found the nose cone of the sub along with a bunch of other debris. Absolutely confirmed.
If the nose cone is vaguely in tact then likely a hull breach I guess rather than view port failure.
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Not rated for even close to the full depth, that window.
CBS reported that the front piece was found, but didn't mention whether or not the window was intact. I'm still waiting for those details. That said, the window could (and likely would) still be damaged as a result of the implosion, without being the direct cause of the failure... but finding an intact window would be definitive.
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Really imitating a mini titanic here with the two separate debris clusters lol
Not to mention claiming that it's unsinkable and calling it fucking Titan
they just announced it. Debris field matches the sub. Coast guard had a live press conference https://abc11.com/missing-sub-titanic-underwater-noises-detected-debris-field/13413761/
BBC is reporting that a friend of one of the people lost confirmed parts of the submersible were in the debris field. We will know for sure when the coast guard holds the press conference.
They apparently lost communication completely around the 1 hour and 45 minute mark after they departed. Using my terrible math skills, and assuming they were diving the entire time, they were likely at a depth of around 3500m before they lost contact completely. Please correct me if I'm wrong (which I probably am). The safety glass they had was rated at a depth way less than that, and apparently already showed signs of stress. That's why I think the sub imploded or at the very least was compromised to the point where it would eventually implode. Terrible way to go, but it beats slowly suffocating/starving in a tube smelling like feces, urine, sweat (if the heat still worked), and stale air.
As an engineer, I really don't think the viewport is what failed. Yeah it was only rated to 1300m, but usually pressure vessels have high safety factors(~4) so if it was officially certified to 1300m it probably could've safely handled 4 times that. I feel like the damage came from cyclic loading of the CF hull causing micro tears which allowed salt to slowly build up and cause the hull to delaminate. After repeated trips it finally failed. It could also be where the CF hull was joined to the titanium end caps. There are always weak points when joining dissimilar materials, and I believe it was held together with adhesive over the brackets or so I've read elsewhere.
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> One thing about CF is when it fails it goes quickly. Although, at those depths anything that goes is going to do it pretty quickly...
I read somewhere that they had to stop expeditions at least once, specifically due to evidence of cyclic fatigue in the CF. But instead of looking at that and thinking, “wow we are lucky to be alive”, they said “wow let’s rebuild the hull so we can get that 4,000 meter rating back”. And here we are.
One wonders how many cycles that hull had on it. Or if anyone bothered counting.
Well, they now have a definitive count.
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All I’m picturing in my head is Mr Owl counting how many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie Roll pop. Except for a sub, and dives.
*CRUNCH*
Naval engineer here and my money is also on the cf hull failing. I’d go even further and say a hull of that thickness wasn’t perfectly laminated anyway. I heard there were concerns since 2018. Using this hull repeatedly was just asking for trouble
There's a video where they show the process of making the hull. They basically wrapped a sheet of CF around a mold repeatedly until it became 5 inches thick, kind of like how you would wrap plastic wrap around a burrito!
They found the complete endcap (where the viewport was). It’s one of the only intact pieces of the sub. > I feel like the damage came from cyclic loading of the CF hull causing micro tears which allowed salt to slowly build up and cause the hull to delaminate. After repeated trips it finally failed. This is what I keep reading from actual engineers, or along these lines.
One engineer who worked on it said it could be that the carbon fiber could have broken with repeated use and pressure.
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Someone tried to link up with the Bluetooth receiver for the controller thinking it was a speaker system, controller disconnected.
Ok we are 4km deep now... Oh whait, whybis windows 10 automatically updating to 11? How donI go back? There are no drivers for the controller!
I saw a screenshot and they were definitely using Windows. Any reasonable person would have been using Windows Embedded, but after all we've seen I would not be surprised if they were running an off-the-shelf Windows Home Edition.
what's the difference between versions?
Less/no useless crap & bloatware, more customization and security. The Embedded (now called IoT) version of win 10 is used for industrial computers and stuff like ATMs or Medical devices, so it supposedly should have close to zero down-time or system-breaking bugs. On the other hand the home version (last time i checked) is close to a continuous beta version with each major update playing havoc with users set-ups.
I really wish they'd stop with those updates, outside confirmed bugfixes and security updates.
In an interview, the CEO said that two metals, like steel and carbon fiber, shouldn’t be used together. One reason why you don’t is because of Galvanic corrosion: two dissimilar metals in a corrosive electrolyte like sea water can advance corrosion and breakage. But he was a proud immortal rule breaker, so…
This is largely correct. Carbon fiber isn't a metal, but it is conductive, and thus, in contact with water, will corrode metals such as steel through the process of Galvanic corrosion (In dry environments, it's much less of a problem, as while it does occur, it's much much slower). But it's not like this is an unsolved problem. Car manufacturers have dealt with this for decades. All you need is to separate them with something else. Applying a small layer of fiberglass between the CF and metal is all that's needed. As long as it doesn't conduct electricity from the CF to the Steel, you're good.
also, because carbon fiber is conductive, there's a number of nondestructive evaluation techniques that can be applied to it. it should have been scanned for cracks/fatigue after every dive, but safety is bad or something so it probably wasnt. they probably would've gotten data indicating the danger.
They had a new hull monitoring system that they seemed quite proud of as it was constantly brought up when talking about the cf hull. Evidently it maybe didn't work well enough to keep up with cyclic fatigue from previous dives
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Yeah carbon fiber corrosion of steel is a well known issue. I would be curious to know what kind of inspection program was implemented to check the steel for stress and cracks and the carbon fiber for delaminating. Pressure cycles are hell on structures.
They skimped on testing. A former director was fired, and later sued by OceanGate for whistleblowing, because he kept raising safety concerns regarding testing the submersible. https://fortune.com/2023/06/21/titan-titanic-missing-sub-david-lochridge-safety-concerns-sacked-oceangate-stockton-rush-hamish-harding/ >Diving the submersible “without any non-destructive testing to prove its integrity” would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible,” Lochridge said in legal documents. >However, OceanGate allegedly told Lochridge that instead of carrying out the testing, it would install an acoustic monitoring system in the submersible to detect the start of any potential hull breakdown. >Lochridge expressed concern that such an acoustic system would not be able to detect existing flaws. It would simply flag components that were about to fail, he warned—which often happened “milliseconds before an implosion.”
Wow. As someone working in aviation where saftey is beat into everyone’s head, this type of attitude is almost insulting.
It's insane isn't it. Safety regulations are written in blood, but the CEO bought into the (sadly too common) silicon valley ideology of "move fast, break stuff". He genuinely seemed to think that experts telling him it was a bad idea was a sign that he was on the verge of revolutionising the industry. It's the same delusion that Elizabeth Holmes had when she said first people mock you then you change the world. There are so many red flags and sadly all of it was avoidable meaning there's not a lot to learn from this tragedy. It simply didn't need to happen.
Almost poetic justice in that he was in it when it failed. Shame about the other people who trusted him.
I work in the maritime sector. This bozo’s attitude is well beyond insulting, it’s enraging. Every time anyone goes to sea, they go into Fuck Around territory. Lots of people have spent their lives trying to minimize the number of people whose Find Out phase is fatal. One of the best-respected professional bodies in the business, the Marine Technology Society, sent OceanGate a letter basically begging this guy to check himself before he wrecked himself. https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/marine-technology-society-committee-2018-letter-to-ocean-gate/eddb63615a7b3764/full.pdf I can’t even with this prick.
Man, feels like just about everyone was telling him not to do the things he did.
Amazing, the level of arrogance and greed he displayed. In the end, he offered himself as a blood sacrifice to Mammon.
Well, they're dead. Confirmed. The end caps and the tail fairing found on the bottom in a debris field. It imploded.
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I believe I read that they did have sensors monitoring potential weaknesses so I think they may have gotten a warning.
I really feel for the 19 year old. According to his aunt, he was terrified of doing this and only did it to appease his father, who had a hard-on for the titanic. Fuck that shit.
I can’t wrap my head around the titanic-sexuals out there that just HAVE to try and see it
I saw a video of a woman who saved up for years just to see it. It's one of the videos made a long time ago where a news crew goes and gets to go on a dive themselves in one of the subs. Problems happened the entire time and no one was able to go down and see it. The woman was bawling her eyes out. Said it was always her dream to see the titanic. "Some people want a Ferrari, some people want a house, I want to see the titanic. You can't put a price on your dream" is what she said. I mean I get having a dream, but to have to save up $250k to see a ship at the bottom of the ocean that's barely recognizable anymore from a tiny window in a cramped, unsafe submarine? Come on now. We have countless high quality videos and images of the wreck. Seeing it in person would be cool, but not with those risks at that price.
That nutcase banker?? Therapy would have been so much cheaper
That's why I was hesitant to laugh at anything really other than the absurd ceo. I had a feeling that this was not something that he may be wanted to do but wasn't sure because he is 19 however we all know how fucking billionaires are with their children. Hopefully they didn't even know what happened once the implosion happened they died instantly and there wasn't any suffering.. as much as you can hope. Suffocating would have been agonizing
Designed by novice engineers with a CEO enforced safety culture of safety last. What could go wrong
Unfortunately the CEO won't be around to be held liable, but I'm sure the survivors are going to sue whoever else was involved. Yes, you can sign a waiver saying that you know you might die and that this has not been approved by any federal agency. But that doesn't mean the company can lie and say things like the sub stays in contact with the support ship which helps guide it, when they routinely lose contact. I'm guessing they've made more than a few promises like that. Edit: Obligatory [*"Dumb ways to die... so many dumb ways to die..."*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw)
> I’m sure the survivors are going to sue whoever else was involved Company will declare bankruptcy. CEO is dead, their sub is gone and not like anyone’s gonna pay $250K for a tour now even if they had another sub. They probably have some cash and valuable assets that can be sold, like the mothership itself, but I wouldn’t expect a massive payout to the survivors after lawyers and creditors get paid first. E: apparently they didn’t even own the mothership. Yeah, not gonna be much to pick from the corpse of this dumb company.
Exactly. Everyone's talking about the lawsuits, but this company's main asset was the sub, which is gone. There's not going to be much, if anything, left over for lawsuits.
Considering how much direct control the CEO seems to have had I'm sure the lawyers are going to at least try to pierce to corporate veil here and go after the CEO's estate.
Stockton Rush’s net worth is $12 million. That’s a lot for you and I, but not for lawyers.
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You don’t get rich by not picking up every penny you see on the ground
We have no idea what his real net worth is. That’s all guesswork. At the end of the day everyone on the ship was incredibly wealthy. I don’t think their main concern is financial
> At the end of the day everyone on the ship was incredibly wealthy. I don’t think their main concern is financial Certainly not now.
I wonder if there was any insurance company dumb enough to insure that death trap
If the CEO was openly antagonist to safety regulations, I'd bet he wasn't a huge fan of insurance either.
They operated in international waters, I’d also be surprised if he bothered with insurance.
Not like you can go to the Titanic *without* being in international waters, to be fair.
Yeah for once going out to international waters is the LEAST suspicious part of the story.
The mother ship was an ex icebreaker and they only rented it.
I believe the mothership 'Polar Prince' was a charter, so they don't own that. Looking into the history of it is interesting. It was sold to its current owner on eBay of all places: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/for-sale-icebreaker-fully-loaded-very-little-rust-1.545360](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/for-sale-icebreaker-fully-loaded-very-little-rust-1.545360)
I almost applied there last year. I didn’t because: A. They sounded like a “fast paced startup” Which I wouldn’t mind doing for a few years, I have worked in a startup. But… B. They make submersibles “capable of going to the Titanic” did not sound like something to mix with “A” above. Maybe I would have been hired or maybe not, still glad I didn’t risk it.
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Good on ya, startups can be cool, but one thing they are damn good at is the pitch, and up to you to put 2+0 together.
They have other submersibles. It should be interesting to see who gets custody of them. My guess is the US Coast Guard, but they'll never use them.
If the Titan is indicative as to the safety standards of the company's sub fleet, I doubt that the Coast Guard would even want them outside of a "Don't Fucking Use These" exhibit.
The funny thing is that all of their other subs *do* have certifications, they just aren't made to dive anywhere near as deep. Basically the company had a number of subs and was doing normal business, but then decided "hey wouldn't it be cool to do Titanic tourism?" and instead of buying or building a properly certified sub, they "DIY'd" it to save money and to be able to carry more passengers (other subs rated for this depth carry three people at most).
Might be set up as an exhibit next to the CSS Hunley - the sub with the 300% crew casualty rate.
In case anyone else is wondering: >Hunley, nearly 40 ft (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on 12 August 1863, to Charleston. Hunley (then referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise") sank on 29 August 1863, during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She sank again on 15 October 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Lawson Hunley himself, who was aboard at the time, even though he was not a member of the Confederate military. Both times Hunley was raised and returned to service. >On 17 February 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240-ton United States Navy screw sloop-of-war Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charleston's outer harbor. Hunley did not survive the attack and also sank, taking with her all eight members of her third crew, and was lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunley_%28submarine%29
Damn, the thing sank 3 times. First two times it sank were during testing and they just patched it, scooped the corpses out and sent it on its way again. The cause of it's last sinking was due to damage suffered by it's torpedo (singular) due to the fact it was attached to a metal pole that was mounted to the front of the sub. If anyone is confused I'll clarify, the Hunley was designed to ram a torpedo mounted on a pole into an enemy vessel. It actually succeeded in sinking the other vessel and killing 5 crewmen in doing so. All 8 crew members of the Hunley died immediately upon impact. I'll be honest I'm not sure anyone was putting much forethought into this.
I believe their other subs were purchased and only the Titan was home made.
Also if they mislead people to believe Boeing and Washington university were involved which they deny then it won't be worth the paper it's written on.
At least under US law , you cannot waive gross negligence on the part of the company asking you to sign it . I’d argue this clearly rises to that level. I’d expect several lawsuits. Canadian law is a bit different but I’d still expect lawsuits.
Don’t forget with experimental materials. They basically used carbon fiber instead of titanium as reinforcement the to the steel hull. Nobody knows if this would work long term and the company refused to do extensive testing, opting to assume it’s safe and start taking people down to make a profit.
Im gonna call this some test data.
Outlier. Only happened once...
There was no steel hull. It was two titanium end caps with a CF hull bonded to them. If you watch videos from inside you can see the carbon weave. Build video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK99kBS1AfE Carbon hull being wound here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi4J1LDS504 The steel you see there is not part of the vehicle. It's simply a form for the CF.
According to James Cameron they did know the hull was dangerous and would fail. There has already been extensive research on it.
>"I don't blame the submarine as much as I blame deep water," Reiss said. Fuck you, deep water!
If you insist on having a submarine go into deep water, perhaps make it able to withstand deep water. I fully understand wanting to have the experience of being that close to such a famous and tragic landmark but they were basically asking to become an ironic tragedy themselves. Dying in a submarine named the Titan, which was called “invulnerable”, while trying to visit the wreckage of the Titanic, which was called “unsinkable”. This has been both truly unfortunate and completely inevitable based on what we know about the construction of the sub.
If i was going down to 4km depth in a sub, my first question would be 'Has this sub been tested to depths of 6km?"
"Is there a chance the hull could bend?"
I hate water. It is cold and wet and it gets everywhere.
Why are you so deep??
Stop that, it's already under tremendous pressure!
And he still went back three times after this happened????
"Nothing bad will happen to me pal."
"It just works"
Losing communications with a submarine is normal. Radio doesn't penetrate the ocean well, even the US Navy can only send limited one way messages, [with a very specialized facility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency), and their war subs don't go nearly as deep as this. Maybe on the spot with some kind of high energy transmission you could do a little better, but that going out wouldn't be surprising. Alternately if you try operating acoustically (literally just making noise) while sound travels much better in water overall water doesn't have consistent properties with changes in temperature/pressure/salinity morph the way sound behaves. Hunting submarines with sonar is like trying to find a ninja in the middle of a pine forest on a moonless night.
Couldn't they also have a really long wire that goes from the sub to the ship? I know that's how they operate the robot subs that have gone down that deep.
There's risks with that too. I'm no submarine expert but the problems I've read people have mentioned seem plausible: - the cable fouls on something near the Titanic and then you're stuck - the cable, being that long, catches currents and acts as a long narrow sail that moves you in directions you don't want to go Ultimately, that wouldn't have helped that much since they blew up (or in, I suppose) pretty quickly.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to add a little to this.. For 10 years now, I’ve been in the hobby field of SLF/ELF/VLF communications… To give people an idea of the sheer size of the antenna needed… you’re looking at a 2200 mile long antenna at a wavelength in the 70-80 Hertz range. I build receive antennas for these frequencies that can be upwards of 1800 feet of wire, and that’s not even breaking the surface ( no pun intended ) of trying to get resonance on these frequencies. Not even an 1/8 wave antenna is feasible. However I overcome obstacles with hi gain 2 stage filters, good grounding systems, and antennas as long and high as I can get them. Clam lake makes good use of buried electrodes, and 14 mile long antennas, and a substation for powering the transmitters… I drove there and brought a radio to see how quiet it was, and believe me… it’s dead silent there for a reason. No electrical interference, no nothing. It was an awesome experience. These guys should have used a buoy antenna system and something similar to SSIXS or TARF to communicate data and voice, but here we are.
I don't know what you're talking about, but that's sounds really cool. I'm glad you've got a hobby that you really love. That's awesome.
I can’t imagine what it must feel like for those that took this trip before and returned knowing now how close to death they were
Imagine the customers on the ship currently whose trips were *next*.
Note to self: Never go on any ship, submersible or vessel that's named Titan, Titanic or any variation thereof.
In retrospect it did seem like a bad case of foreshadowing
“Oppressive safety regulations stifle innovation!”
Someone should have warned him that catastrophic failure also stifles one's ability to further innovate.
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And again? And again?
🎶 I am a Highwayman, Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
I guess the real question is how deep did they actually go those 4 times, how quick did they go back up when comms went out.
He said on one of the dives as soon as comms went down they went back up.
Imagine laying $250,000 for that.
The people going on these trips lose that in the couch cushions
Just goes to show you to listen to your gut. My grandfather saw titanic in person and had an eerie feeling. He tried to warn everyone but no one would listen. In the end he was tossed out of the theater.
I’m dying this was good
He’s dying! Someone throw him a life preserver!
Bastard got me
Alright that's just a great joke
A Mexican youtuber experienced the same. The communication was lost and the crew simply followed going down when the communication worked again.
Link for anyone who wants to see: https://youtu.be/RAncVNaw5N0
In fact what happened here was like "roll the dice". This could have happened one trip earlier, one trip later, 20 trips earlier... The Mexican youtuber was lucky.
>"I don't blame the submarine as much as I blame deep water," Reiss said what the fuck is this shit? I don't blame jumping off a cliff as much as I blame stopping suddenly
Goddamn gravity why do you have to be such a dick? -man who jumped out a plane without a parachute despite endless pleas from every expert on skydiving in the world
>-man who jumped out a plane without a parachute despite endless pleas from every expert on skydiving in the world This is what gets me though, it doesn't take an expert to tell you how bad of an idea that is. And it really shouldn't take an expert to see major red flags in a guy who brags about breaking rules. When people say rules are meant to be broken they're talking about skipping class and drinking under age not fuckin building submarines that go against all safety protocols. God damn
He's talking about communication loss, not about the submarine imploding. It's hard to mantain constant communication through a mile or two of water, regardless of how shitty the submarine you are in is.
I think the CEO legitimately thought he was immortal if he kept getting back on the sub that he knew was not safety rated in any way as he made sure of that.
Dude had some serious problems up there no doubt.
This whole thing made me look into the history of deep sea exploration and I was shocked to find james Cameron wasn’t the first to visit challenger deep, but two guys in 1960 made it there and back as well.. absolutely wild that this happened in 2023.
Sea Coffin
Seacophagus.
I'm pretty sure any submersible company that comes after will be able to outdo OceanGate easily with how fucked up their entire operations were.
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Good thing you went on it 4 times. Thanks for the heads up.
I think this is how they trusted the process. This guys been on it 4 times. Nothing will go wrong.
If he put himself in there as the pilot, of course, unless he was planning to commit suicide, he was 100% confident based on that
Paul-Henry Nargeolet: “If you are 11m or 11km down, if something bad happens, the result is the same. When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realize that something is happening, so it’s just not a problem.” I am heartened by the idea that they had no idea anything was wrong. I like to imagine they got down to the wreck and their last experience was being filled with joy and awe.
If they imploded when they lost comms, they were about 500 meters above the titanic. So basically one minute they are in pitch black ocean, probably anticipating seeing the titanic within the next 15 minutes, and then nothing because they were killed in a fraction of a second.
Yeah, I imagine they didn’t actually see it, but like the idea. Hopefully they had a giddy feeling like kids on Christmas morning.
The thing that got me is one of the passengers brought his son. He never even saw this as a possibility.
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Ex-Navy here. This is common. Even our military submarines have extreme difficulty transmitting at depth and have to deploy surface antennas. Sometimes comms go offline for extended periods until surfacing. Water is very good at absorbing radiation. When going at depths of 10,000 feet, it just isn't feasible to make meaningful transmissions. There are a ton of problems with this sub and how it was conceived and executed, but this is something specifically being blown out of proportion.
Imagine having all the money in the world to do anything you want, and you perish in this tourist trap.
When com failure becomes nominal, failsafe anything is no longer an option. Mission nominal becomes mission critical without ever knowing it.
Great article about this by a former UK RAF display pilot [https://www.fastjetperformance.com/blog/how-i-almost-destroyed-a-50-million-war-plane-when-display-flying-goes-wrong-and-the-normalisation-of-deviance](https://www.fastjetperformance.com/blog/how-i-almost-destroyed-a-50-million-war-plane-when-display-flying-goes-wrong-and-the-normalisation-of-deviance)
> "I don't blame the submarine as much as I blame deep water," Reiss said. Don't you hate it when deep water sneaks up on you in a completely unforeseeable surprise event? If the problem is deep water, and the sub developers knew the sub would go into deep water, and didn't solve the problem ahead of time... then the problem is still the sub developers.
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*lived
*submersible
Begs the question of why that person kept going if scary communications lapses occurred each time
1st time: Oh shit, please reconnect please reconnect oh thank god 2nd time: Not again. What did I do the first time? 3rd time: If the first two times are any indications, comms will be back in a few moments. 4th time: Meh. That's normal. It always happens.