Titanic tourist submersible goes missing

[Captain Bill]

Isn't it amazing how many people like to show their ignorance in public by commenting on things they know absolutely nothing about.

[boatman61]

The US Coastguard presumably took charge because it was the nearest mainland to the incident..
As to it being a death trap waiting to happen has long been speculated upon, over two years I believe.. however these things happen and not just at sea..
As long as there's wealthy people willing to she'll out big bucks there will be chancers ready to take their cash be it trips to the Titanic or flights into space, or for the less affluent war zone tourism.
What we do has become mundane, any Tom, Dick, Harry and Jane can do it.. and do..
For those griping about the migrants, a rescue was made and some were saved, others drowned and 500 or so were entombed when the vessel capsized.. it got coverage from the media, every 15 minutes on Sky for a few days along with critical comments about the Greek Coastguard followed by the current investigation.. then Titan happened and the media had something new to feed on..
You get what you pay for.
As for Magellen.. 2. 5hrs after Titan was launched would have been to late as it turned out.. the mercy is death would have been instant..

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

Isn't it amazing how many people like to show their ignorance in public by commenting on things they know absolutely nothing about.

That's why many are here methinks..

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by Kd9truck

I’m perplexed as to why the US Coast Guard is even involved?

Because the Titanic sunk at Latitude 41.7N, and the USA is responsible for coordinating SAR activity up to Latitude 45N in that part of the Atlantic.

[Kd9truck]

Originally Posted by Kelkara

Because the Titanic sunk at Latitude 41.7N, and the USA is responsible for coordinating SAR activity up to Latitude 45N in that part of the Atlantic.

Solid answer thank you kelkara

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Kd9truck

the private charter agency should have had a way to retrieve the submersible
AND
There should have been a way to open the hatch from the inside
And
There should have been a way to self rescue
AND
There should have been back up comms At the very least a emergency sonar beacon
AND
All these things should have been drilled on SEVERAL TIMES with every member in the sub
And
There should have been a backup sub to rescue the primary submersible in case the safety redundancy equipment failed.

Don’t hate the sober reality messenger
Cheers

Perhaps a bit of maths may help. 3800m will have a pressure of about 5500psi.

Excatly which options on your list would have helped if the sub was instantly crushed on the way down?

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Perhaps a bit of maths may help. 3800m will have a pressure of about 5500psi.

Excatly which options on your list would have helped if the sub was instantly crushed on the way down?

Yeah the one "sticking point" some people seem to have is not being able to open the hatch from the inside but that isn't all that uncommon with specialized submersibles. The submersible and mothership are a team. It is never designed to operate alone. If you can get to the surface floating around for a bit until someone opens the hatch isn't the end of the world. If you can't reach the surface well being able to open the hatch from the inside is more likely to cause problems than good with panicking crew hundreds or thousands or meters below the surface.

Also on the list was self rescue. It did have a self rescue mechanism called being positively buoyant without the ballast and being able to drop the ballast. It is about as foolproof as you can get which is why when the sub didn't bob to the surface in the first hour after losing comms it already looked grim.

As for backup comms it may have them. The vessel likely didn't lose comms and later implode it just imploded which instantly cut off all comms (include any backup ones actual or hypothetical) and all self recuse methods and made things like if the hatch should open from the inside or not instantly moot.

Now it seems like this company is a bit shady and cut corners so I am not saying they have a good design or are following best practices but most of the major objections aren't really that uncommon. A submersible isn't designed like a long range cruising vessel to be autonomous for months at a time. If it runs into any serious problem at all it dumps the ballast and lets physics puts it on the deck. Any serious problem short of instant implosion that is.

The only good news is the crew had no time to react or panic or fear. They were just there one minute excited about seeing the titanic soon and then in an instant were not.

[TrentePieds]

Thank you, Statistical, for an excellent common-sensical post :-)

And thanks also to Noelex for his "yer pays yer money and takes yer chances" post (#27)

The abyssal lack of nous of someone who'd lay down a quarter of a million bux for this "adventure" defies comprehension and cannot be discussed without getting "political"!

TrentePieds

[Kd9truck]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

Isn't it amazing how many people like to show their ignorance in public by commenting on things they know absolutely nothing about.

������, I was asking a question Bill, there’s a question mark at the end of my first sentence lol. Cruisers forms is actually a question/answer format (really it is��). So by this nature people do ask questions about which they,…using your words… “know absolutely nothing”.
Or am I wrong Bill?

I am intimately familiar with with lives lost in the service of saving lives.
PM me if you want the details.
Cheers

[Kd9truck]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Perhaps a bit of maths may help. 3800m will have a pressure of about 5500psi.

Excatly which options on your list would have helped if the sub was instantly crushed on the way down?

Hi Pete,
Good question

Can I ask you do you know it was instantly? May there have been warning sounds that would have alerted them? If primary comms failed could they have used backup comms to enact safety protocols? If a teather was in place could the uncontrolled vessel be stoped in its decent and retrieved prior to catastrophic failure?

the private charter agency should have had a way to retrieve the submersible
At the very least they could retrieve the bodies without putting other lives at risk

There should have been a way to open the hatch from the inside
There should have been a way to self rescue
There should have been back up comms At the very least a emergency sonar beacon.
All these things should have been drilled on SEVERAL TIMES with every member in the sub.
There should have been a backup sub to rescue the primary submersible in case the safety redundancy equipment failed.

Engineering a vessel to do this is such a monumental task imho it is akin to putting a “tourist” on the moon All these components of a safety matrix should have been in place or the vessel would be unworthy.
The answer is in the result sadly.

The concept without appropriate safety was gravely flawed from the start. That this outfit had “experience” in sending “tourists” down in this grossly inappropriate capsule only highlights that fact.

Experience is not always doing the right thing multiple times, experience is sometimes doing the wrong thing multiple times and getting away with it.
Lawrence Gonzales

I an open to change my opinion and frequently do
Cheers

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Kelkara

Because the Titanic sunk at Latitude 41.7N, and the USA is responsible for coordinating SAR activity up to Latitude 45N in that part of the Atlantic.

I had to verify that. Apparently I never really looked at the Titanic's lat/long before. I just thought it was "way up there" off Newfoundland.

41.7N is about the same latitude as Cape Cod, MA.

They're South of me. My mind is boggled.

[Simi 60]

Let that sink in.

[Kd9truck]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

I had to verify that. Apparently I never really looked at the Titanic's lat/long before. I just thought it was "way up there" off Newfoundland.

41.7N is about the same latitude as Cape Cod, MA.

They're South of me. My mind is boggled.

Your post prompted me to take yet another look I could not find it on a nautical map but several reports have it roughly 350 miles off Newfoundland and 500 miles from cape cod. If I read the correct coordinates. Closer to Canada but under US jurisdiction is the best description to the reason US coast guard has jurisdiction.
( I had read 900 miles from cape cod in the first report I read.)

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Kd9truck

Hi Pete,
Can I ask you do you know it was instantly? May there have been warning sounds that would have alerted them? If primary comms failed could they have used backup comms to enact safety protocols? If a teather was in place could the uncontrolled vessel be stoped in its decent and retrieved prior to catastrophic failure?

The actual experts on the scene based on the location of the wreckage and size of the debris field estimate it imploded around the time communication were lost. We are unlikely to ever know more than that.

On edit: Navy acoustic analysis confirms their findings

A U.S. Navy acoustic detection system recorded "an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost," the Navy told the Wall Street Journal.

A 3800m tether are you serious?

There will be no bodies recovered. Can you mentally visualize what 5500 psi would do to anything other than a pressure vessel. Pounds per square inch. As in almost 3 tons not 3 tons in total 3 tons on every square inch of surface. Essentially putting a human sized object into a 3000 ton hydraulic press.

[Statistical]

One unknown decision is why carbon fiber. There have been dozens of deep sea submersibles that all together have to have made hundreds of dives over the last 60 years and none have failed catastrophically at depth like this. None also used carbon fiber. Yes carbon fiber is strong but so is steel if you use enough. Carbon fiber is light but hard to see how that is an advantage here. The boyancy is coming from the low pressure air inside the pressure vessel which is a lot lighter.

Obviously they had a reason otherwise they would have just used steel but not sure what it would be.