Titanic tourist submersible goes missing

[Solauren]

More then likely, the occupants of the sub were near instantly pulverized AND squeezed out of the sub. I imagine it would be like taking a tube of toothpaste or cookie dough and crushing it with a hydrolic press.

But, the closet I've seen is vs cabbage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19s8CRUVf3E

About 5 minutes in.

[bilateralrope]

Put it this way: If they're still in what's left of the submarine, which is doubtful, then there won't be much point in using body bags. Some large buckets would be more suitable.

Do the remains of the sub even have an inside at this point ?

[LadyTevar]

Please don't forget there ARE creatures down there that will have been very happy with a sudden already-pulverized high-protean meal, and they've had several days to devour whatever remains they can find.
As someone pointed out on FB "All those empty shoes and clothing on the Titanic weren't empty when the ship went down."

[bilateralrope]

I had some questions about how the authorities were sure about when the implosion happened. So I'm posting an article with the answer.

Titanic sub search: US Navy detected implosion sounds after sub lost contact

14 hours ago

By Kathryn Armstrong
BBC News

The US Navy detected sounds "consistent with an implosion" shortly after OceanGate's Titan submersible lost contact, a navy official has said.

Five people were aboard the vessel when it went missing during a dive to the Titanic wreck on Sunday.

The loss of the sub was confirmed after a huge search mission.

The official told CBS News their information about the "acoustic anomaly" had been used by the US Coast Guard to narrow the search area.

According to CNN, it was deemed to be "not definitive" and therefore the search and rescue mission continued.

Earlier on Thursday, Rear Adm Mauger of the Coast Guard confirmed that all five people aboard Titan had been killed following what was probably a "catastrophic implosion", based on patterns of debris discovered.

However, he said no sounds had been detected during the search mission that were consistent with this.

"We've had sonar buoys in the water nearly continuously and have not detected any catastrophic events when those sonar buoys have been in the water."

On Wednesday, the US Coast Guard confirmed that a Canadian P-3 aircraft had detected "underwater noises" in a search area for the missing vessel.

This brought new hope that the Titan's crew might be found alive and caused the Coast Guard to relocate operations.

According to CBS, those noises are now thought to have been coming from other ships in the area.

Paul Hankin, an undersea expert, said the first indication that the sub might have imploded came after a large debris field was found on Thursday.

"Essentially we found five different major pieces of debris that told us that it was the remains of the Titan," he said.

Efforts are continuing to map the debris field and to search the sea floor around the Titanic.

Contact with the vessel was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive nearly a week ago. Titanic's wreck lies some 435 miles (700km) south of St John's, Newfoundland.

Aboard the vessel was British billionaire businessman Hamish Harding, who had written on social media ahead of the dive that it was taking place because a "weather window" had opened up,

He said that because of the "worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years" the mission was "likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023".

British father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood were also part of the crew. They were from one of Pakistan's richest families.

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush also died on Titan, alongside former French navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I too had read about this, already there were morons questioning why there was this rescue effort going on when they'd heard the implosion and put two and two together. Regardless of the fact that you still need to get down there to visually confirm the vessel's fate instead of calling it without even bothering to see if what they heard was in fact the hull imploding . This video which had updated its title having been uploaded 4 years ago simulates what a sub imploding might actually look like, and from the comments quite a few people searched for the same thing.



There's another video simulating the Titan itself but it's of very poor quality.

[aerius]

Did some reading and it turns out they built the damn thing out of carbon fibre. Holy fuck is that ever stupid. Carbon works well in tension which is why it's great for things that are pressurized from the inside like airplanes and rockets, but it sucks in compression so it's kinda shit on things that are squeezed from the outside - like subs. Then these dumbasses bolt a giant window into the carbon which creates a bunch of stress risers where cracks can get started, the holes create breaks in the fibres which reduces the strength of the part, then when you put a bolt through it and tighten it down it stresses the fibres and puts a splitting force on it. If you've ever over-tightened a wood screw you'll have a good idea of what happens; wood splits apart, project ruined.

No wonder it wasn't certified past 1300 metres, this sub was fundamentally flawed to begin with.

[Solauren]

It's also why I have zero sympathy for the sub occupants.

If you're going on a dangerous trip, make sure the vehicle can handle it.

[Broomstick]

Then these dumbasses bolt a giant window into the carbon which creates a bunch of stress risers where cracks can get started, the holes create breaks in the fibres which reduces the strength of the part, then when you put a bolt through it and tighten it down it stresses the fibres and puts a splitting force on it.

This part of your post is incorrect.

The carbon fiber part was the central cylinder. However, the two end-caps were half-spheres of titanium. They put the window in the titanium endcap, not in the carbon-fiber cylinder.

There is still the problem that the window material itself was not rated below 1300 meters. The fact they were able to go lower without it failing instantly was probably due to an engineering safety factor.

We do not, at this point, know if the window played any part in the submersible failure.

[Broomstick]

It's also why I have zero sympathy for the sub occupants.

If you're going on a dangerous trip, make sure the vehicle can handle it.

I don't have sympathy for the OceanGate CEO Rush.

I do have some sympathy for the passengers who weren't deep sea experts and would not have the knowledge to determine on their own just how risky this trip would be. Which is one of the reasons you're not supposed to having paying passengers in an experimental vehicle.

[aerius]

Then these dumbasses bolt a giant window into the carbon which creates a bunch of stress risers where cracks can get started, the holes create breaks in the fibres which reduces the strength of the part, then when you put a bolt through it and tighten it down it stresses the fibres and puts a splitting force on it.

This part of your post is incorrect.

The carbon fiber part was the central cylinder. However, the two end-caps were half-spheres of titanium. They put the window in the titanium endcap, not in the carbon-fiber cylinder.

There is still the problem that the window material itself was not rated below 1300 meters. The fact they were able to go lower without it failing instantly was probably due to an engineering safety factor.

We do not, at this point, know if the window played any part in the submersible failure.

Which is just as fucking stupid. There's no reliable way of joining titanium to carbon fibre in this particular application. If you try to mould & bond them together the difference in stiffness & thermal expansion along with seawater exposure will degrade the adhesive and crack it apart, and bolting just goes back to the stress riser issue.

But the main problem is using carbon fibre, it's just a shitty material for deep water subs. It sucks in compression and it's damn near impossible to make something as large as the sub out of it without having a bunch of voids & other flaws in the material, and properly inspecting it is gonna be a bitch as well. Anything other than the smallest flaw and the damn thing is gonna delaminate after enough pressure cycles, and once that happens it's all over.

[aerius]

Did more looking around to see if I could find any pictures or videos of how the titanium end caps were attached to the carbon fibre tube. It's bad.

Start at around 9:30 in the video link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaOVYkWgpcM

There's not much overlap between the titanium & carbon and it's just a glued on slip fit between the two parts. Also look at how the epoxy is being applied, they're doing it in a warehouse with a bunch of workers in street clothes who aren't wearing hairnets or anything else to keep contaminants from getting into the joints. That epoxy is contaminated to hell with dust, clothing fibres, hair, and god knows what else which is going to degrade it significantly.

So on top of a dumb as fuck design the actual construction was also shoddy as hell. I can't say I'm surprised the damn thing imploded.

[Solauren]

I'm shocked it didn't implode on it's first voyage! Ye Olde Gods, I've seen teenagers in a shop class take more precautions!

[Solauren]

It's also why I have zero sympathy for the sub occupants.

If you're going on a dangerous trip, make sure the vehicle can handle it.

I don't have sympathy for the OceanGate CEO Rush.

I do have some sympathy for the passengers who weren't deep sea experts and would not have the knowledge to determine on their own just how risky this trip would be. Which is one of the reasons you're not supposed to having paying passengers in an experimental vehicle.

True.

However, if you have the cash that OceanGate was charging, you have the brains to check into things like 'is this vehicle taking me to the bottom of the ocean safe?' i.e contacting the regulatory agencies and asking about that vehicle.

[Batman]

Elon Musk has cash coming out of his ears. Does the guy strike you as as particularly smart?

[Broomstick]

It's also why I have zero sympathy for the sub occupants.

If you're going on a dangerous trip, make sure the vehicle can handle it.

I don't have sympathy for the OceanGate CEO Rush.

I do have some sympathy for the passengers who weren't deep sea experts and would not have the knowledge to determine on their own just how risky this trip would be. Which is one of the reasons you're not supposed to having paying passengers in an experimental vehicle.

True.

However, if you have the cash that OceanGate was charging, you have the brains to check into things like 'is this vehicle taking me to the bottom of the ocean safe?' i.e contacting the regulatory agencies and asking about that vehicle.

Part of the problem is that Rush was operating in international waters which are not under the jurisdiction of anyone. There were no regulatory agencies. Which, honestly, should also be a sign of trouble.

Some of what went on around the Titan reminds me a lot of the homebuilt/experimental aircraft scene in the US. A huge difference is that the environment your typical homebuilt exists in is a LOT more forgiving than deep sea diving. It's easy to overbuild your kitplane so a sloppy epoxy job isn't lethal in operation, as just one example. By any chance was Rush involved in homebuilts? Success there might have made him overconfident in his abilities to build experimental vehicles.

His attitude that regulation is holding back innovation is also common in that crowd, the whole notion that a smart guy from the outside can come up with something all the real experts were too blind to see. Let's just not mention all those innovators who wound up dying in their innovations.

[bilateralrope]

It's also why I have zero sympathy for the sub occupants.

If you're going on a dangerous trip, make sure the vehicle can handle it.

Even this passenger ?

19-year-old Titan sub passenger 'terrified' before trip - aunt

Suleman Dawood was "terrified" to go on the Titanic tourist sub trip that would eventually claim his life, according to his aunty.

The 19-year-old was reportedly reluctant to go, but eager to please his Titanic enthusiast dad Shahzada Dawood as the trip fell on Father's Day weekend.

Shahzada is a prominent businessman in Pakistan, which is how the family could afford the US$250,000 price tag for a seat on the trip.

Azmeh Dawood — the older sister of Shahzada — told NBC News that her nephew Suleman told a relative that he "wasn't very up for it" and felt "terrified" about the long trip down to the Titanic in the OceanGate sub.

"I am thinking of Suleman, who is 19, in there, just perhaps gasping for breath... It's been crippling, to be honest," Azmeh said.

She added Suleman went to make his dad happy as he was fascinated with Titanic lore. The trip also fell on Father's Day in North America where the team left from.

Azmeh was left "devastated" today upon hearing the news debris from the Titan sub had been discovered and the five people onboard likely died instantly when the submersible imploded.

"I feel disbelief It's an unreal situation," she told NBC news.

"I feel like I've been caught in a really bad film, with a countdown, but you didn't know what you're counting down to. I personally have found it kind of difficult to breathe thinking of them."

The family's business Dawood Hercules Corp., has investments in agriculture, the health sector and other industries.

Shahzada was also an adviser to Prince's Trust International, a charitable organisation founded by King Charles III.

[Zaune]

Elon Musk has cash coming out of his ears. Does the guy strike you as as particularly smart?

Only in a very limited and specific area. Much like pre-dementia Trump, I think he's genuinely talented at marketing but as out of his depth as what's left of this submarine when it comes to management.

[bilateralrope]

Boeing, UW and NASA deny design partnerships with OceanGate

WSU Everett and Everett Community College severed ties with company.

By Janice Podsada
Thursday, June 22, 2023 1:30pm

EVERETT — OceanGate claimed it drew on the expertise of some of the nation’s high-powered corporations, universities and federal agencies to design and build Titan, the five-person sub whose pilot and passengers perished this week en route to the wreck of the Titanic.

The deep sea exploration company has described The Boeing Co., the University of Washington, and NASA as “partners” who made significant contributions to the vessel’s design and construction.

“We partnered with aerospace experts at the University of Washington, NASA and Boeing on the design of our hull,” a promotional video on OceanGate’s YouTube channel advertises. The moderator’s statement is accompanied by a screen covered in the logos for Boeing, NASA and the UW.

This week, all three entities — Boeing, NASA and UW — denied participating in the sub’s design or construction.

Their denials have raised questions as to whether OceanGate overstated, misrepresented or exaggerated the role they played, if any, in developing the experimental vessel designed to take high-paying customers to the Titanic wreckage. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard said the vessel suffered a catastrophic implosion.

Such claims might have led tourists to believe the sub was more thoroughly vetted than it actually was despite OceanGate’s description of the sub as an experimental craft.

OceanGate said it drew upon Boeing’s expertise to design the vessel’s hull, consulting with the airplane manufacturer in designing Titan’s unique carbon fiber and titanium hull. Other small submersibles are typically built from a heavier combination of steel and titanium, OceanGate said.

“This is the only submersible — crewed submersible — that’s made of carbon fiber and titanium,” OceanGate CEO and founder Stockton Rush told The Associated Press in June 2021. Rush called it the “largest carbon fiber structure that we know of, with 5-inch-thick carbon fiber and 3.25-inch-thick titanium.” The chief executive was one of the five passengers who died after the Titan went missing Sunday.

In a statement Thursday to The Daily Herald, the aerospace giant denied a partnership with the company.

“Boeing was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it,” the company said.

Boeing may have consulted with OceanGate, but it’s not clear what that involved, according to a 2013 UW news release.

“The Boeing Company worked with OceanGate and the UW on initial design analysis of the 7-inch-thick pressure vessel,” the release read.

In a clarification added to the 2013 news release on Wednesday, the UW said, “the vessel that resulted from this partnership was a steel-hulled submersible that can travel to 500 meters ( 0.3 miles) depth, named the Cyclops 1.”

OceanGate refers to Titan as its “second Cyclops-class submersible.”

Denials of involvement in the sub’s design have also been issued by NASA and the University of Washington.

The space agency told an Alabama news outlet this week that it consulted with OceanGate but “did not conduct testing and manufacturing (of the submersible) via its workforce or facilities.

The University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory also issued a disclaimer this week.

A 2013 university news release describes a joint effort by OceanGate and the physics lab.

In a statement to The Herald on Thursday the UW said,“The physics lab initially signed a $5 million research collaborative agreement with OceanGate, but only $650,000 worth of work was completed before the two organizations parted ways.”

“That collaboration resulted in a steel-hulled vessel, named the Cyclops 1, that can travel to 500 meters depth, which is far shallower than the depths that OceanGate’s Titan submersible traveled to. The Laboratory was not involved in the design, engineering or testing of the Titan submersible used in the RMS Titanic expedition,” the UW said.

Between 2015 and 2021, OceanGate used the UW School of Oceanography’s testing tanks for nine tests “on a contract basis,” the UW said.

OceanGate was listed as the client, but no UW researchers or staff provided “any verification or validation of any OceanGate equipment as a result of those tests,” the UW said.

OceanGate also partnered with Washington State University Everett and Everett Community College in offering internships to students and graduates.

A 2018 WSU Everett news release offered an exuberant account of student involvement in designing the sub.

“When a five-person submersible descends to the floor of the North Atlantic this summer, part of a historic series of private excursions to map the famed RMS Titanic’s wreckage in 3-D imagery, it will be WSU Everett students that helped make it possible,” a 2018 news release from the college said.

The release says that the sub’s entire electrical system was designed by WSU Everett students.

“The whole electrical system – that was our design, we implemented it and it works,” Mark Walsh, a 2017 WSU Everett graduate in electrical engineering, said in the release. “We are on the precipice of making history and all of our systems are going down to the Titanic. It is an awesome feeling!”

In 2017, OceanGate hired Walsh to lead the company’s electrical engineering. According to his LinkedIn profile, he left the ocean adventure company in 2019.

On Thursday, WSU Everett offered this statement to The Daily Herald:

“WSU Everett does not have an alliance with OceanGate,” the statement reads. “We are aware that some of our graduates have worked at OceanGate. To our knowledge, one graduate currently works there. We are not privy to what OceanGate projects WSU Everett alumni have been involved in or what their roles may have been outside of publicly available information.”

OceanGate’s ties to WSU Everett and Everett Community College began after the company moved to Everett in 2015.

Founded in Seattle in 2009, OceanGate leased warehouse space at the Port of Everett in 2015. There the company planned to develop and build a “fleet of manned next-generation submersibles,” and conduct sea trials.

Everett Community College’s Ocean Research College Academy, located at the port, helped students obtain internships at OceanGate, said Ardi Kveven, the academy’s founder and executive director.

However, those internships were discontinued four years ago.

Kveven said there was often a disconnect between the exploration community, which embraced pushing the envelope, and the more methodical scientific community.

Puffery is allowed

Attorney Sherif Edmond El Dabe, a partner with Los Angeles-based El Dabe Ritter Trial Lawyers, said OceanGate CEO Rush specifically sought to hire younger people.

Based on Rush’s on-the-record comments,“He wanted a team partly based on who would do things in a new way due to their youth and optimism,” El Dabe told The Herald on Thursday.

“Was the team ignorant of certain safety concerns or design flaws that an older, experienced engineer would have headed off?” El Dabe asked.

That’s unknown.

The news comes as the company announced Thursday that all five passengers had perished in the Titan.

“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” OceanGate said in a statement Thursday.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans. Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew,” the company said.

With their deaths, the families of the passengers may launch a legal challenge against OceanGate.

But obstacles loom.

“Everyone on board knew this wasn’t a vacation or a sightseeing trip, and the disclaimer appears to have made the risk of death very clear multiple times,” El Dabe said.

As a result, the likelihood of a successful lawsuit against OceanGate “is close to zero,” El Dabe said.

Still, what passengers didn’t know when they signed up for the trip might be relevant in a lawsuit.

The waiver could be challenged if it’s found that OceanGate was negligent in the way the submersible was designed or operated, “and that caused it to be lost,” El Dabe said.

On the other hand, exaggeration or overstatement may not count.

If OceanGate merely exaggerated or overstated its ties to NASA, Boeing and the UW — the determination could be much murkier.

“The law does allow for some amount of puffery or exaggeration in marketing materials,” El Dabe said.

If OceanGate worked with Boeing in some capacity, “but Boeing didn’t have an actual hand in the design and construction,” that type of statement would not invalidate the waiver, he said.

On the other hand, if the waiver, for example touted the sub as rated for 13,000 feet but it’s actually rated for 5,000 feet — that would be fraud, El Dabe said.

Statements by Rush and a 2018 lawsuit by a former employee claiming the OceanGate ignored safety issues are also likely to be taken into account, the attorney said.

Sounds like the company lied to make the sub sound safer than it was. We shall see if the lies were big enough to allow lawsuits.

The CEO wanting to hire younger is not a surprise. Easier to convince them to try something new (and cheap) without questioning why he's ignoring safety rules.

[Solauren]

It's also why I have zero sympathy for the sub occupants.

If you're going on a dangerous trip, make sure the vehicle can handle it.

Even this passenger ?

19-year-old Titan sub passenger 'terrified' before trip - aunt

Suleman Dawood was "terrified" to go on the Titanic tourist sub trip that would eventually claim his life, according to his aunty.

The 19-year-old was reportedly reluctant to go, but eager to please his Titanic enthusiast dad Shahzada Dawood as the trip fell on Father's Day weekend.

Okay, him I have sympathy for. He was basically strongarmed onto it.

[Solauren]

Elon Musk has cash coming out of his ears. Does the guy strike you as as particularly smart?

Only in a very limited and specific area. Much like pre-dementia Trump, I think he's genuinely talented at marketing but as out of his depth as what's left of this submarine when it comes to management.

Actually, I have wondered if Musk had someone in mind to run Twitter for them, and they backed out on him. One N.D.A and Musk not admitting to it, and we'd never know.

[aerius]

Yo guys, we need to find some cost saving so I can embezzle the money into my cocaine fund, y'all got any ideas?
I hear Boeing has a bunch of expired carbon fibre they can't use, maybe we can buy that?
Yeah, that totally sounds like a good idea, let's do it!

I don't know if the conversation went quite like that, but apparently that's what they did.
https://www.travelweekly.com/North-Amer ... nic-part-2

This Stockton Rush was somewhat cocky, but I felt his accomplishments gave him the right to be so.

Only one thing concerned me: He said he had gotten the carbon fiber used to make the Titan at a big discount from Boeing because it was past its shelf-life for use in airplanes.

I asked him if that weren't a problem. He replied that those dates were set far before they had to be, and that Boeing and even NASA had participated in the design and testing of the Titan.

It is a conversation I have thought about a great deal over the past week.

At this point it's more like what DIDN'T they fuck up that what they did.

[bilateralrope]

I've found an interesting claim in a BBC article

What happens in an implosion?
When a submarine hull collapses, it moves inward at about 1,500mph (2,414km/h) - that's 2,200ft (671m) per second, says Dave Corley, a former US nuclear submarine officer.

The time required for complete collapse is about one millisecond, or one thousandth of a second.

A human brain responds instinctually to a stimulus at about 25 milliseconds, Mr Corley says. Human rational response - from sensing to acting - is believed to be at best 150 milliseconds.

The air inside a sub has a fairly high concentration of hydrocarbon vapours.

When the hull collapses, the air auto-ignites and an explosion follows the initial rapid implosion, Mr Corley says.

Human bodies incinerate and are turned to ash and dust instantly.

Can anyone explain where those hydrocarbon vapours would have come from ?

[aerius]

Can anyone explain where those hydrocarbon vapours would have come from ?

Probably all the plastics inside when they're rapidly heated by compression.

[bilateralrope]

Ok, that could do it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

And the idea that aerospace companies and their materials are used in a vehicle intended for an environment the exact opposite of their area of expertise is also suspect. And it makes perfect sense that they'd want to distance themselves from any involvement they might have had, real or otherwise.