The Titan submersible tragedy has left the victims’ families shaken. What was meant to be an exciting 10-hour journey to the Titanic wreckage ended in the deaths of five people who had boarded the vessel. All the passengers were killed in a catastrophic implosion – an underwater implosion that led to the vessel suddenly collapsing. The Titan submersible is owned by the company OceanGate.
The five deceased passengers were OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul Henry Nargeolet, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.
OceanGate says that the Titan is a 23,000-pound submersible made of carbon fibre and titanium. The vessel uses a “proprietary real-time hull health monitoring (RTM) system,” and any time an issue is detected, an “early warning” would be sent to the pilot, to leave “enough time to … safely return to the surface.”
Following the tragedy, a retired US submariner has taken to Facebook to explain why he thinks the “company and CEO were grossly inexperienced and negligent in submarine operations.”
“Some thoughts on the Titan tragedy from an old washed up submariner,” Jim Keays wrote. “Using carbon fiber for a pressure hull that apparently had not gone through any type of cyclical pressure testing and environmental testing, no thermal expansion and contraction testing, titanium components that were attached to the pressure hull with a chemical adhesive as a watertight barrier and was apparently exposed to saltwater, the hatch to the pressure hull bolted from the outside after the submersible is manned (refer to Apollo tragedy), Bluetooth vs. Wired controls, no secondary hull and backups, conscious decision to not add seasoned submarine subject matter experts to the team (by his standards he'd have rejected Admiral Rickover's resume), no atmospheric systems to monitor interior gases such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc. No emergency air breathing system (a small electrical fire would have been catastrophic on this vessel), no chlorate candles onboard as a secondary oxygen source, no lithium hydroxide onboard to handle high CO2 but they weren't even monitoring it anyway, disregarding safety concerns of employees, using a large viewing window that was only certified to 4,000 feet, and a cavalier egotistical view that the submersible could skip industry standard type certifications, etc., etc., etc. I could keep going but you get the picture.”
He continued, “The ocean at a couple thousand feet is incredibly dangerous. An attempt to submerge at much deeper depths is a major evolution. At 12-13k feet you can reasonably make the comparison that it is nothing short of an attempt to land on the moon. To say the ocean at depth is unforgiving is understated without context. The ocean is one of the most dangerous operating environments known to man. The CEO of OceanGate either did not fully grasp this or his ego was too big to think he was at the mercy of the ocean, not the other way around. I assume it was the latter based on his words in taped interviews I have seen.”
{{/usCountry}}He continued, “The ocean at a couple thousand feet is incredibly dangerous. An attempt to submerge at much deeper depths is a major evolution. At 12-13k feet you can reasonably make the comparison that it is nothing short of an attempt to land on the moon. To say the ocean at depth is unforgiving is understated without context. The ocean is one of the most dangerous operating environments known to man. The CEO of OceanGate either did not fully grasp this or his ego was too big to think he was at the mercy of the ocean, not the other way around. I assume it was the latter based on his words in taped interviews I have seen.”
{{/usCountry}}“By the way, using a game controller is not super concerning to me. They are used by the U.S. Navy to operate modern non-penetrating periscopes on Los Angeles, Seawolf, and Virginia class submarines. The topics I stated above are more concerning,” Jim said, adding, “My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of this horrible tragedy. May they rest in peace.”
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is now launching an investigation into the implosion of the Titan, CNN has reported. The National Transportation Safety Board has also said that the US Coast Guard will lead the investigation into the incident.