Missing Titanic tourist submersible

[steve58]

Have you guys been following this story?  The more you look into it, the more insane it gets.  The thing was a total death trap apparently assembled from makeshift parts and controlled with a PlayStation controller.

Just to add to the insanity, they were bolted in from the outside with no way to get out without an external crew letting them out.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65953872

Charging $250,000 a seat, so they could have afforded a more sophisticated controller. 

Sounds like whatever happened, may have happened early in their descent; losing comms less than 2 hours into an 8 hour descent.

  Apparently I was wrong.   Descent to the Titanic only take 2 hours and comms were lost at 1hr 45min.

p.s. This article shows the first full-sized digital scans of the Titanic.  Easy to see how the sub could get caught up on/in something down there.

[steve58]

Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions was confirmed to be aboard the company's missing tourist sub, the company confirmed on Tuesday (20 June).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stockton-rush-oceangate-submarine-titanic-b2361176.html

[SirAndrewD]

If it's not them...

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

 

[Gusington]

^That's what I am very afraid of.

[Sir Slash]

Anybody got Prince Namor's number?

[GDS_Starfury]

of all the problems this sub could have the controller is the least of them.

[al_infierno]

Another thing they were apparently worried about is "ghost nets," or loose fishing nets floating around in the ocean.  I understand running into one of those would be a death sentence for this type of submersible.

of all the problems this sub could have the controller is the least of them.

Apparently the controller they used costs $30 on Amazon and has reviews complaining about spotty reliability 

[Sir Slash]

Anybody else find it a tad ironic that the Titanic's down there because the Captain put performance above Safety, and now 111years later....

[Tripoli]

A debris field has been discovered near the Titanic.  I assume that this is a previously unknown debris field.  Apparently, there will be a press conference a 1500 (likely EST) today.  https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/debris-field-discovered-area-near-titanic-amid-search-missing-oceangate-sub-coast?utm_source=breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

[Dammit Carl!]

To be fair and for the sake of argument, if found intact and with signs of life inside, just how would they have been rescued?  I think (and I could be wrong here, may just be military hardware or I'm high on something) most subs made have standardized hatch fittings so rescue vehicles can attach and take on personnel - and even then, there were limits to effectiveness - but obviously this sub had none of those things.

[Tripoli]

To be fair and for the sake of argument, if found intact and with signs of life inside, just how would they have been rescued?  I think (and I could be wrong here, may just be military hardware or I'm high on something) most subs made have standardized hatch fittings so rescue vehicles can attach and take on personnel - and even then, there were limits to effectiveness - but obviously this sub had none of those things.

I don't think they could have been rescued, even if found.  The only way to do it would have been to lift the sub off the ocean floor and float it to the surface.

[al_infierno]

To be fair and for the sake of argument, if found intact and with signs of life inside, just how would they have been rescued?  I think (and I could be wrong here, may just be military hardware or I'm high on something) most subs made have standardized hatch fittings so rescue vehicles can attach and take on personnel - and even then, there were limits to effectiveness - but obviously this sub had none of those things.

I don't think they could have been rescued, even if found.  The only way to do it would have been to lift the sub off the ocean floor and float it to the surface.

Interestingly, the sub had some kind of floatation failsafe that would carry it to the surface in the event of an emergency.  But even if that functioned perfectly, they painted the damn thing white so it would be just about impossible to spot by plane anyways.

[GDS_Starfury]

[SirAndrewD]

I don't think they could have been rescued, even if found.  The only way to do it would have been to lift the sub off the ocean floor and float it to the surface.

Yeah, that was going to be the problem. 

They were actually bolted into the sub, there was no way to marry a rescue vehicle to the the hull and offload the crew. 

I saw a couple of articles that said they were trying to get remote deep dive vehicles into the area that could theoretically attach a cable and possibly pull the sub up, but feasibly the process to even begin to realistically do that would take longer than the reserve oxygen.

As I said before, in that situation implosion was the more merciful way to go.  Looks like that's what happened.

[Tripoli]

 Wreckage belonging to the missing sub confirmed found 1600 feet from the Titanic shipwreck.   USCG is saying the sub sank due to an implosion.  All hands lost.  At least it would have been quick.  RIP.
https://justthenews.com/events/coast-guard-confirms-titanic-sub-marine-passenger-crew-dead