One of the last messages sent from the doomed Titan submersible during its June 2023 voyage to the Titanic wreckage was "all good here," the Coast Guard said.
What do you mean what do we need a mattress for? Why in the hell do you think we just spent all that money on the Titan? The whole point of buying a submersible in the first place is to get the ladies nice and tipsy topside, so we can take em to a nice comfortable place below the sea, and you know… they can’t refuse. Because of the implication.
The investigation will also examine whether there is any evidence of misconduct or criminal acts in connection with the incident
What is the legal definition of misconduct anyway?
Given that Rush seemed to willfully ignore warnings from experts and fired people unwilling to do things like sign off on the safety of the sub I think there’s definitely a case for misconduct, at the very least.
There was a really good article on this and unfortunately I can't find it now to share
But the gist was that Titan exploited a bunch of loopholes, among other things. The paying customers on the sub were in fact 'marine researchers' who coincidently made a donation, and things like that
Some of the people who were at one point involved but left due to safety concerns raised the issue with OSHA (? - or whoever the more specific body was) who repeatedly failed to investigate or take any action
So for me, whether or not they are able to charge the company, the industry regulators and government bodies overseeing them need to face some questions and judgements too (though it would take a more knowledgeable person than me to know what exactly that looks like)
My God what hubris. Rush had so many chances to pause the dive or work on a redesign and ignored it. I can't imagine the fear of being 3000+ feet below and hearing the first cracks of the hull as it starts to implode. Hope it was fast.
I don't think there were any cracks. Most probably it was, one second there is a submersible and everything seems fine, and the next second there is no submersible. And everything is still fine because we just got rid of a few billionaires for free, and didn't even have to use a guillotine.
That theory doesn't explain why they suddenly dropped ballast and attempted an ascension prior to implosion, though.
E. After doing some digging, the comments about the Titan having dropped weights and was ascending during implosion came from James Cameron. Not sure if that makes it more or less trustworthy...
I agree that we're talking milliseconds between the first crack and full implosion. Any cracks in carbon fiber will act as a stress concentrator which will cause more cracking in a rapid exponential process. There's a reason everyone else doing this said you can't use that material. Metal has some ductility so a very tiny crack normally won't cascade like that instantly.
I hope so too. Especially for the kid that was brought along. But even if it was a second or two... knowing you're about to die and there's nothing you can do to stop it...
At approximately 2,274 meters, the Titan sent the message, "All good here," according to the animation.
The last communication from the submersible was sent at approximately 3,341 meters: "Dropped two wts," meaning drop weights, according to the Coast Guard.
All communications and tracking from the submersible to Polar Prince were lost at 3,346 meters, according to the Coast Guard.
I'm assuming a lot here, but dropping weights would likely mean they were trying to ascend. They may have had just over five meters' worth of knowing something was going wrong (whatever that means in terms of time) before the implosion.
Hollywood is going to make that soo dramatic! Extending the 4 nano second event into what might seem like an eternity...4 seconds tops...."Actually guys, I think we might have a......".....silence. such a Sumner moment. Oh hey, can we get rid of putin? I have an idea but we're going to need lots of toilet paper, concrete, rope, and a baseball bat! Oh this is gonna be so good! Pinatas are fun! And a tranquilizer dart! We need that or the paper won't stick. You don't want a mushy pinata!