Oceangate Sub Missing

Midland?

WTF is that link? I gave up half way through as it was absolutely bobbins nonsense of the highest order!

We know jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams.
Likewise, an iceberg cannot cut through a hardened steel hull.

Holy shit, please, please, please tell me someone hasn’t actually started a conspiracy based an a Maddox April Fools gag from 16 years ago!

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af07

He’s just on the make.

Likewise, an iceberg cannot cut through a hardened steel hull.

Deary, deary me! The utter stupidity and ignorance of these people. For starters, Titanic, like her sister ships and all other ships of that period had steel hulls, but the material was of poor quality compared to modern steel, and her hull was compromised by a coal bunker fire that caused the iron to become brittle in the cold North Atlantic, although the nature of the steel meant it became brittle in the cold water anyway:

After doing a series of impact tests based on their steel sample, the team was able to determine that the steel used to build the ship was much more inferior to modern steel. About 10 times more brittle in fact compared to the steel used to make today’s ships. Test results showed high concentrations of sulfur, oxygen, and phosphorous, and low concentrations of manganese, nitrogen, and silicon.  This was mainly a result of producing the steel using open-health furnaces. Pieces of steel from the hull have also appeared almost shattered, with no evidence of bending or deformation.

The Temperature

The frigid waters in which the Titanic struck the iceberg most likely had a big impact on the time it took the Titanic to sink, which was about 2 hours and 40 minutes. The below-freezing temperature water made the steel abnormally brittle and less impact-resistant and contributed to the size of the hole and the rapid sinking of the ship. Passengers on the Titanic recalled hearing loud cracking noises coming from the ship’s structure while it was sinking. Leighly noted that you would expect groaning instead of cracking sounds when steel breaks unless the steel is brittle.

Somewhat surprisingly weight is a massive issue on submarines.

Because it’s fairly obviously got to float. But you’ve got to ballance that against making it as small as possible because force = pressure x area so the bigger it is the shallower it has to stay (or you need even more material). That’s why they’re all so crammed in. Space needs to be as efficient as possible. And by cramming everything in, you end up with something overall far more dense than a surface vessel, so everything needs to be lighter again.

Boats can be made out of concrete, and it might come as a surprise to you, that the Russian ‘Typhoon’ class nuclear powered missile boats displace 48,000 tonnes, with comfortable accommodation for 160 crew for months on end. They’re 574’ 2” long, 75’ 6” beam, with a draught of 39’ 4”. Would you consider that a small boat?
They need to take on ballast in order to submerge, because, of course, they’re hollow, and full of air.
But then, you knew that, didn’t you.

I, and I cannot have been alone, was just waiting to hear that this whole ‘false-flag’ escapade was just a pretext to prevent me from visiting the Titanic wreckage site.

Is there nothing the woke liberal elite cannot control?

I get that rich people run out of things to do, or need to push the envelope to get their kicks but…. How do people this dumb get so rich?

Why not use the money that you probably couldn’t even burn in your lifetime to help the world. Develop an electric commuter bike, 2 batteries, solar umbrella, 40 mile range. Make it at a loss to get people out of their cars.
Buy land and plant forests
Develop fission
Build green energy stations
Develop and sell house insulation
Build eco houses and rent them to families

Etc

But no. Im going to look at a shipwreck in a dsv at probably 3x its real safety limit where if any 1 thing goes wrong I’m dead.
Just bonkers

I thought about the tourism angle.  for a long time I wanted to get a get air balloon over the pyramids.  it was a bucket list thing, that inwas hoping to do for my 40th.  then at some point t there was an accident and a few people died and its put me right off.  balloons still fly there though.

I imagine to do it you have to sign all sorts of waivers about death, and stepping into the basket you are trusting the company has done the right safety checks.

the sub is just the billoanires equivalent to my hot air balloon trip

I imagine to do it you have to sign all sorts of waivers about death

A bit like Bike Park Wales then?

A bit like Bike Park Wales then?

Joking aside, in UK law an organisation or individual can’t avoid responsibility by having you sign a waiver. Even with a waiver they can still face legal action if they have been negligent.

the sub is just the billoanires equivalent to my hot air balloon trip

In some ways yes but there are some differences. Hot air balloons are tried and tested technology and depending on where it is they’re likely to be subject to regulation.

Spin

I don’t think the Titanic location has any other significance other than being suitably dangerous and in international waters

Bizarre comment, if it were true then any bit of deep water would have done. Can you imagine people paying a fortune to visit some nondescript bit of ocean floor?

Pretty much … they have to pick somewhere and it needs to be in international waters but otherwise why not?

If you have to pick somewhere then …

So by accident it became a celebrity artwork – it’s the most famous painting in the world now for no real reason than it’s famously the famous painting – and probably always will be even though there’s no one alive still that will remember that theft and it’s reporting.

the titanic will never stop being the most famous shipwreck

or

It’s more of an Everest, but without the nice view.

Spin

It’s quite obviously not just about the danger, that’s a common mischaracterisation of any sort of extreme* activity. The danger is an important element but it’s not the motivation.

* I hate this term but it will do here.

Perhaps that’s better put… but

apparently the bottom of the Marianas trench doesn’t have a lot going on other than being the deepest..

which would do nicely as well, rather like if the Mona Lisa was never stolen… or a free climb of El Capitan or 29,000 feet without oxygen or … so to look at that from the other side.

The point here is those on the sub knew the risk was significant

Can you imagine the same people paying a fortune to visit some bit of ocean floor if the sub was safe, tested to double the maximum expected pressure and equipped with multiple fail safes?

Can you imagine the same people paying a fortune to visit some bit of ocean floor if the sub was safe, tested to double the maximum expected pressure and equipped with multiple fail safes?

Err, yes. In fact i think many more people would pay if they knew this. I suspect the guy who took his son probably thought it was safe.

or a free climb of El Capitan or 29,000 feet without oxygen

You can’t just pay to do these things unless you’re already a pretty good climber. The bar there is not wealth but ability.

Edited for clarity…

DT78

I get that rich people run out of things to do, or need to push the envelope to get their kicks but…. How do people this dumb get so rich?

Why not use the money that you probably couldn’t even burn in your lifetime to help the world. Develop an electric commuter bike, 2 batteries, solar umbrella, 40 mile range. Make it at a loss to get people out of their cars.
Buy land and plant forests
Develop fission
Build green energy stations
Develop and sell house insulation
Build eco houses and rent them to families

Etc

But no. Im going to look at a shipwreck in a dsv at probably 3x its real safety limit where if any 1 thing goes wrong I’m dead.
Just bonkers

It’s bonkers to you .. obviously not to them.
How safe do you think space tourism is?

Make it at a loss to get people out of their cars.

I think as Elon Musk recognised, even he can’t fund that to the point of mass adoption….

The real point though is from THEIR perspective the two are separate things and it’s a perspective thing.
What you perceive as pointless risk gives meaning to them and just because you perceive it differently doesn’t give you/us a right to determine what gives their lives meaning or prevent them fulfilling it,

I imagine to do it you have to sign all sorts of waivers about death, and stepping into the basket you are trusting the company has done the right safety checks.

If the company hasnt done those safety checks though that will generally invalidate waivers.
As a general rule you cant use a disclaimer to avoid responsibility. Taking that bike park Wales example and a disclaimer can be used to acknowledge that if you ride a black route you do risk injury.
However they would still be responsible if they stuck in a completely bonkers feature on a blue run and didnt mention it or put in a really hard to see water bar on a fast section etc.

In this submarines case it does seem increasingly the hot air balloon equivalent would be them having a revolutionary approach of using hydrogen.

Can you imagine the same people paying a fortune to visit some bit of ocean floor if the sub was safe, tested to double the maximum expected pressure and equipped with multiple fail safes?

Have you seen the claims they were making?
They did claim multiple redundancies etc etc and the bloke in charge was very defensive about its safety and how whilst rule breaking it was rule breaking in a good way.
So yes I think they were paying to go down in a working sub as opposed to playing russian roulette as to when it would fail.

Spin

Err, yes. In fact i think many more people would pay if they knew this. I suspect the guy who took his son probably thought it was safe.

I guess it’s speculation on the guy who took his son… but

i think many more people would pay if they knew this

I’m sure they would but not the SAME people.

I’m sure they would but not the SAME people.

I think you are wrong because of your simplistic assumtion that it is the danger that is the main motivating factor.

if the sub was safe, tested to double the maximum expected pressure and equipped with multiple fail safes?

That would basically mean that it would be massively heavier than it needs to be. The problem here, if I understand it, was basically fatigue – each time the structure was stressed, it was weakened. If that’s the case, then a carbon fiber sub will always have a finite life and will have to be scrapped after a certain number of dives.

No fail-safe is possible with the pressure hull. If that fails, the crew are dead.

Spin

You can’t just pay to do these things unless you’re already a pretty good climber. The bar there is not wealth but ability.

There is a bar to making it… not necessarily to trying and though that’s a difference I feel it explains why those wealthy people chose this over either of those. It doesn’t require years of dedicated training.

How are the Yosemite Parks Services going to prevent someone free climbing El-Cap or for that matter who decides?
It’s like Alain Robert .. he climbs, he gets arrested, he gets released, he climbs.

In this case all the passengers had the resources to pay for an independent risk assessment.
They should however be free to ignore it.

They even (in this case) had the resources to commission their own sub being built and tested, again they chose not to.

I’m sure they would but not the SAME people.

I think you are wrong because of your simplistic assumtion that it is the danger that is the main motivating factor.

Whether it’s the MAIN factor or a contributing factor I still don’t think the SAME people would have bothered had it been totally safe. (whatever that means)

To put it another way if a fully tested sub was available that could do the Titanic “safely” then the bottom of the Marianas trench would probably be a more “attractive” adventure.

Perhaps part of that is “well anyone can go to the Titanic” … but I don’t think the draw would be the same for people specifically looking for risky adventure.

What I think is more important though is other people shouldn’t get to decide what people choose or not based on what they think is acceptable risk. (With a caveat of risk to others)

As an example I accidentally saw Alain Robert climbing the TOTAL tower.
Within minutes a barrier and exclusion area got erected so he wasn’t endangering anyone else but himself. At best mildly inconveniencing them.. (the tower has a seperate underground entrance – well 2 but one is vehicles)

To put it another way if a fully tested sub was available that could do the Titanic “safely” then the bottom of the Marianas trench would probably be a more “attractive” adventure.

There is.

And at least one of the people onboard the titan had also been on/in it.

Dissonance

Have you seen the claims they were making?
They did claim multiple redundancies etc etc and the bloke in charge was very defensive about its safety and how whilst rule breaking it was rule breaking in a good way.
So yes I think they were paying to go down in a working sub as opposed to playing russian roulette as to when it would fail.

Non of the passengers on that sub were so strapped for cash they couldn’t pay for an independent assessment.

As an example I accidentally saw Alain Robert climbing the TOTAL tower.
Within minutes a barrier and exclusion area got erected so he wasn’t endangering anyone else but himself. At best mildly inconveniencing them.. (the tower has a seperate underground entrance – well 2 but one is vehicles

The barrier and exclusion zone there are functioning like industry regulation in that they stop a maverick individual endangering others.

@stevextc I think you are over-estimating the ability of those on the sub to assess the risks of it. As per spin, particularly the bloke that took his son along.

Just because they undertook what plainly now was a very dangerous activity doesn’t mean that they actively wanted to undertake a very dangerous activity.

I’m sure OceanGate presented themselves as a very professional and competent operation, with a CEO who could clearly present himself well and be convincing as per why it was classed as “experimental” but yet was still safe.

Turn it around the other way. If the CEO had been stating the real risk “you have about a 25% chance of dying” do you seriously think anyone would have gone?

Also on BBC news there has been a bloke who was associated with Hamish Harding, who was due to go, but pulled out because he could see it was risky/they were cutting corners. So it was clear at least some of the clientele were aware of the risks.

The other were probably a bit (lot) too trusting.

Develop fission

probably best we don’t encourage the wealthy to do that – there’s enough megalomaniacs in the world with the power to wipe out the planet!

on the flip side – someone inherits the wealth of those who died.  That person may be more inclined to do useful things to leave a lasting positive legacy?

The other were probably a bit (lot) too trusting.

Perhaps but all the passengers were easily capable of paying for their own risk assessment (and may well have done).

Also on BBC news there has been a bloke who was associated with Hamish Harding, who was due to go, but pulled out because he could see it was risky/they were cutting corners.

Again, I’m assuming they knew about that… and chose to ignore.

Turn it around the other way. If the CEO had been stating the real risk “you have about a 25% chance of dying” do you seriously think anyone would have gone?

Dunno, would 15% make a difference or 10% ???

With their wealth you assume they ask for the specs and get a team of experts to assess them (or not).
If the specs are false that’s different…
If the specs are not forthcoming then you make your own decision ..

Why not use the money that you probably couldn’t even burn in your lifetime to help the world. Develop an electric commuter bike, 2 batteries, solar umbrella, 40 mile range. Make it at a loss to get people out of their cars.
Buy land and plant forests
Develop fission
Build green energy stations
Develop and sell house insulation
Build eco houses and rent them to families

Etc

100% agree with this, but I also think we should all look at how much time/effort/money we put into similar causes ourselves, on a local level outwards. As said earlier in the thread it’s not just down to those above us in the wealth stakes to pick up the responsibility here, esp. when most of us on this thread are quite wealthy in global terms. Though the average billionaire can spend bigger than I can their wealth may not be liquid assets and whatever they do, I also still know I could do more than I do. I’m probably sounding defensive of them, not really my intent as I don’t know what they do/don’t do, I just think there’s more of ‘us’ than there are billionaires and healthy society is made up of normal people doing good things around them, voting for the greater good, etc.

Perhaps but all the passengers were easily capable of paying for their own risk assessment (and may well have done).

With their wealth you assume they ask for the specs and get a team of experts to assess them (or not).

And how does that happen in any meaningful way if the CEO ‘has had enough of experts’, sees regulation as stifling innovation, doesn’t test to industry regs due due to IP/attitude/whatever – so won’t release the sub for tests by anyone else?

CEO was probably a good talker, over-confident and saying he was going along so it must be ok, etc. All the passengers would get from a basic assessment is opposing opinions. Emotions would cloud judgement and next thing, there they are £200k and 3000m down when it implodes.

Taking it back to things we all know more about – I see parallels with the number of carbon fork recalls in recent years and the number of people buying still carbon forks on aliexpress etc to ride at 40mph+ in a layer of lycra and a polystyrene hat. It’s a classic human condition, ‘it won’t happen to me’.

People make bad judgement calls all the time and hindsight is always 20:20 vision?

I dunno, I mean even Ross Kemp turned it down!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66003569

Yep, happy to be shot at by Taliban but this sub deemed to risky by someone who’d actually risk-assessed it properly. Apparently at least one other documentary-maker also turned down a trip for the same reason. Says it all really.

Dunno, would 15% make a difference or 10% ???

I think most people would assume it wouldn’t be offered as a public service if the risk of death was that high. Nor would they expect the CEO of the company to be travelling with them if the risk of death was that high. It’s all easy to say in hindsight, and there was clearly always a danger, but it’s also clear there was confidence in what they were doing, whether it was misplaced or not.

The CEO would have difficult questions to answer were he still here but he’s now dead, along with the rest of them. I just think it’s very tragic and sad, and I’m surprised at some of the opinions being voiced in this thread: they don’t paint a good picture of humanity.

Perhaps but all the passengers were easily capable of paying for their own risk assessment (and may well have done).

The chances of them getting it see any design detail sounds incredibly slim. So any assessment probably isn’t entirely useful

An account from other potential passengers showed the CEO Stockton Rush was very persuasive and would say things like ‘it’s safer than scuba or crossing the street’ I  am sure he really believed what he was saying. But he was very wrong.

Are the press going to christen this OceanGate Gate?

I think most people would assume it wouldn’t be offered as a public service if the risk of death was that high

half of the people you know who smoke will die of a condition that’s a result of smoking

while people are using this thread to congratulate themselves for not being the kind of idiot who’d pay hundreds of thousands pounds to take an opportunity that it turns out was highly risky (risks we all know about after the event but have happily convinced ourselves this is something we’ve always known) there are also people on the same thread engaging in activity that is literally a coin toss as to whether it’ll kill them – slowly  with lots of time for regret- and may well spend hundreds of thousand to achieve that outcome.

were typically unconcerned about risks if it’s a risk we’re familiar with taking

There were two on board with previous deep sea experience. I’m surprised at their choice.

As a marine engineer who’s worked in submarine safety in a previous job, the whole situation just seems like a catalogue of errors from start to finish and an avoidable tragedy caused by leadership in the company. I’m well aware the safety certification process is time consuming and expensive but it is ultimately how you prevent exactly what’s just happened.

The lack of class certification is big issue for a commercial vessel, as is the nonchalant approach to it. Class rules in general are usually based on information gathered the hard way. It’s also relatively non-prescriptive in many areas – if you can demonstrate the method you’ve used to achieve safety is robust, the class society will approve. So to not gain class approval hints of corner cutting and a lack of demonstrable safety evidence, rather than bureaucracy as the owner seems to think.

It’ll be interesting to see the engineering design aspects of the submersible come out in the investigation – what were the factors of safety employed in the design, and what assurance and review were there to provide assurance the calculations were correct.

I don’t have the source but I’m sure I saw it written down the other day that the CEO said the sub was not classified due to it being so innovative that it would take years for experts to understand it.

If Id have heard that I’d have run a mile…

while people are using this thread to congratulate themselves for not being the kind of idiot who’d pay hundreds of thousands pounds to take an opportunity that it turns out was highly risky (risks we all know about after the event but have happily convinced ourselves this is something we’ve always known)

Playing/working with Water always has a risk,a wonderful slave a terrible master I think what was what I was taught as a child, then there’s a few classic underwater films with a bit of Implosion and generally working on a rig used to pay well and I don’t think it was due to dealing with the b.o of the other workers.

TBH if you look at the recent news there’s been a fair few fatalities around the U.K. involving water and nothing as exotic as x miles under it.

Water is inherently risky for us, we mitigate for this risk when we do stuff involving it.

Choosing an experimental uncertified design when there are proven certified designs over price seems a strange decision, especially when you have a lot of money.

Sorry for Doomsplaining 🙂

mashr

The chances of them getting it see any design detail sounds incredibly slim. So any assessment probably isn’t entirely useful

That would be useful in itself … assuming that to be the case.
It’s no different from countless investment opportunities the rich and superrich get really in that specific respect.

I think most people would assume it wouldn’t be offered as a public service if the risk of death was that high. Nor would they expect the CEO of the company to be travelling with them if the risk of death was that high. It’s all easy to say in hindsight, and there was clearly always a danger, but it’s also clear there was confidence in what they were doing, whether it was misplaced or not.

Firstly it’s not “most people” … the tourists were all experienced with being approached with dodgy schemes by convincing sounding CEO’s… and secondly it’s not a public service.

This wasn’t the 07:45 from Piccadilly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamish_Harding

Between 9 and 11 July 2019, Harding was mission director and crew pilot for the flight mission One More Orbit, which set a world speed record for the fastest circumnavigation of Earth by aircraft over both geographic poles

maccruiskeen

half of the people you know who smoke will die of a condition that’s a result of smoking

while people are using this thread to congratulate themselves for not being the kind of idiot who’d pay hundreds of thousands pounds to take an opportunity that it turns out was highly risky (risks we all know about after the event but have happily convinced ourselves this is something we’ve always known) there are also people on the same thread engaging in activity that is literally a coin toss as to whether it’ll kill them – slowly with lots of time for regret- and may well spend hundreds of thousand to achieve that outcome.

were typically unconcerned about risks if it’s a risk we’re familiar with taking

Or to sum up you just accept the risk and get on with life.
We are all going to die anyway, it’s a certainty so why be concerned?