Film director James Cameron has expertise in designing and testing these submersibles, and he has many criticisms of the design of the sub that imploded, and of the hubris of the CEO who ignored repeated safety warnings from the diving community. He also mentions that the sub seems to have been attempting to resurface when it imploded, suggesting that they were aware the hull was starting to fail.
If it really happened the way he says it did (implosion at 3,500 ft when they were travelling down to 13,000 ft) this sub was in no shape or form suited for this dive.
It’s not confirmed at this point as I understand and Cameron also disclosed it as a rumor in a recent interview on Youtube.
Just read about Stockton Rush’s (CEO and “pilot” of the sub, presumed dead) views about security:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_Rush
It’s just amazing how an aircraft pilot, a guy with an ivy-league degree in aerospace engineering can have such twisted ideas about standards, regulations, and security in general.
No way in hell would I have signed up for this haphazard dive.
While obviously he intellectually knew the requirements were different, and even managed to build something that survived a few trips, I almost wonder if there is a certain amount of mental inertia there, similar to the old saw, “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” In aircraft, and even spacecraft, you do so much more to save weight than would be necessary or appropriate for designing a submarine, and your pressure vessel will never need to handle more than 1 atmosphere. Again, I’m not suggesting that he was literally stupid and didn’t understand that at some level, but I haven’t heard from anyone who’s been around subs who thinks he was on the right developmental track.
If you read the Wikipedia entry on the Titan submersible, it mentions somewhere that the original designer only intended it as a one time use vehicle. That doesn’t inspire confidence.
That is freaking insane! So they knew this wasn’t meant for repeated dives and did it anyway……
So I went back to the Wiki entry and I made a mistake - There was a footnote about a submersible built by Richard Fossett called the DeepSea Challenger that was first to use the carbon polymer design, which is what the Titan’s design was based on. Anyways, Fossett died before he could use his personal sub, Virgin Oceanic bought it and got it tested (because Richard Branson wanted to use it), but that testing determined that it could only be used once, so they never bothered to use it after that. So I guess the main lesson that Rush learned from all this is to not get the carbon polymer sub tested because that’ll just confirm it shouldn’t be used more than once.
Either way it’s nuts to think that was documented and ignored!
There’s also that old adage about experts being particularly vulnerable to believing they are smart and capable in other fields. It seems this is particularly prevalent among engineers.
I’ve also run across it frequently from doctors, who have that same impulse, plus they had to start specializing basically their sophomore year of college, and then they get cultural feedback that they are the best and brightest. They seem especially prone to stupid business ideas that, if they weren’t stupid, would let them go from extremely comfortable and locally influential, to being the powerful magnates that their intellect and service clearly entitles them to be.
Anecdotally, I’ve met almost two dozen people with high level engineering degrees who were about as sharp as a bowling ball when it came to literally everything besides their coursework. Each one of them with whom I shared my perspective that “critical thinking skills are all that matter for measuring intelligence, not the ability to memorize data; chimpanzees can do that better than we can anyway” reacted very negatively, which I’ve always thought was interesting.
I don’t want to imply that everyone with an advanced STEM degree is a dullard and a weiner, a drone who can only produce results if he memorizes reams of other peoples’ work. It’s just an overrepresentation peculiar to that kind of field, just like how the humanities have an eternal plague of arrogant dicks who got philosophy all figured out at age 14.
As someone who is good at memorization (although not as much post COVID) but has been historically poor at critical thinking, I agree. People kept telling me I was “smart” and that there was no way I could fail X or should fail X, but life experience and slow but steady analysis showed me that no, everyone (including my parents and teachers) were wrong. I was dumb as bricks, I’m just good at memorizing things.
I’m aware that my critical thinking skills aren’t great. I’m also aware that I had no business going to college (and failing of course) studying what I did (computer science) and that it’s actually very good and liberating to admit how fallible you are, and how bad you are at things, because it gives you the freedom and insight to know what you can do instead of what you can’t.
I’ve lived long enough to see stupid people succeed at what “smart” people fail at, just because they’re honest enough and humble enough to admit when they can’t do something, and also when they’re wrong. I saw that doing something right imperfectly (but effectively) is more useful than doing something wrong with perfect execution. It’s the difference between going forward at a walk, and going backwards with a rocket thruster.
Apparently the viewport was rated for 1300m, and they were driving to 4000m. The fact it survived as long as it did is testament to the manufacturer’s standards. The fact that it failed is utterly unsurprising.
Also the inspector they hired to verify the sub’s safety was denied when he requested equipment to scan and test the hull integrity, was fired when he raised these concerns, and was sued for leaking company secrets when he tried to report it to OSHA.
Honestly the only surprising part is that it survived the previous thirteen dives before this one.
I thought it only dived three times total?
It surfaced three times total.
The reports I heard said communication was lost when the sub was at a depth of 3300 meters, not feet. But yeah, carbon fiber seems like a bad choice and the thing was an implosion waiting to happen.
Just to clarify, I think the implosion was likely at 3500 meters, not 3500 feet. The total depth they were going down to was about 4000 meters.