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.
Really interesting to hear an actual expert with experience at depth (and at this exact site) discuss this story. I’m glad the anchor didn’t cut in too often and let him speak at length. Thank you for sharing!
Hubris is the word.
The CEO Stockton Rush, just off the top of my head:
- Fired his own director of marine operations for formally reporting “numerous issues that posed serious safety concerns". These included that the viewport was only rated to 1,300 meters, the carbon fiber hull had flaws which gave it the potential to fail, and that the hull integrity monitoring systems installed in response “might only provide ‘milliseconds’ of warning before a catastrophic implosion”.
- Refused to submit to an industry certification process for the sub, despite being warned in an open letter with dozens of signatories that failing to do so risked “negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic)”.
- Denounced the laws regulating submarine tourism as having “needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation”.
Denounced the laws regulating submarine tourism as having “needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation”.
He was a consistent Republican donor, apparently, so probably a devotee of the “regulations are holding back innovation” religion. In other words, “I want to cut costs and make more profit, so I’d rather risk people’s lives than spend money to protect them.”
He died like he lived, shirking safety in the name of commercialization.
he never thought the leopards would eat his own face.
or he never thought his sub would be his coffin.
This trend of companies firing the person responsible for giving safety warnings is really troubling, and I’m concerned that our whole planet is going to go down like that someday.
needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation
Gosh, I can’t imagine something as minor as passenger safety being important… Seriously, is this guy real or is it three psychopaths in a trenchcoat?
Currently neither, just some small squashed pieces on the ocean floor
Who knows with him.
"might only provide ‘milliseconds’
“Don’t give me your mumbo-jumbo Mister Scientist - will the alarm go off or not?!”
At least he wasn’t a hypocrite about regulations.
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.
Shit, in all this time I hadn’t considered the middle of the road option between “dying immediately without knowing” and “slowly choking to death over several days”: dying but knowing that’s a big possibility right up until you’re crushed in the blink of an eye…
Yeah, if they were resurfacing it must have been bad and readily apparent. Based on the hubris of the COE, I imagine he would be quick to handwave away any signs of problems. Not only was he willfully against safety inspections and so forth, but he knew if he had to abandon a trip due to a concern that his brilliantly engineered sub was breaking, he’d be proving all the nay-sayers right. If it got to the point that the COE decided it was time to turn around, it had to be bad. There is also probably a decent chance that he was on notice and could have abandoned the dive earlier and maybe saved everyone on board, but was motivated to keep pushing lest he be met with a chorus of “I told you so” from the diving community. At any rate, if its true they were trying to resurface, they knew and likely spent their last moments terrified.
hasn’t this guy gone to the deep sea in a sub all by himself? wild
Cameron did it in a sub that was tested and certified. The Titan sub was not actually tested or certified, because that would have been expensive.
Hell, Titan’s view port was only rated for 1300 meters, not the 4000 meters of the Titanic wreck.
oof, guess it shouldn’t be surprising that they went missing…
Hey - it’s only 1.7 miles short, it just sounds bad when you put it in meters
/s
He’s pretty involved in the deep sea submersible community by all accounts, supposedly he’s dived to the Titanic site 33 times and been involved in the design of some of the vessels used.
Yeah, that’s how he found all the Na’vi actors for Avatar!
