Submersible diving to Titanic wreck missing

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

"Adventure Tourism" is a pretty big thing.

You can hire guides to take you to the top of Everest.
You can (or should be able to soon) fly to outer space on a rocket.
You can make skydives from incredible heights.

All with little or no experience and minimal training.
It just takes cash (and quite a bit of it in some cases).

Sometimes it doesn't go the way it's supposed to.

The multiple deaths on Everest in 1996 (as told in the book 'Into Thin Air') are a good example.

It's looking like there's going to be another one.

On Sunday (6-18) a private sub went down to the wreck of the Titanic. It lost communication after about an hour and 45 minutes into a planned descent of 2 hours.

There's a lot of speculation about what could have happened. It's said they have enough oxygen on board to survive for less than 20 hours at this point (1300 CST on the 21st). 

As the story unfolds, there are starting to be quite a few questions raised about the safety of the vessel. And the certification of it (or lack of). And how the company responded to questions about those things (including firing someone who asked them).
There are also a lot of stories about difficulties the company has had on previous missions. 

This sort of expedition is always risky. But most of the serious 'deep sea submersibles' are government funded, properly certified, and used for actual research, not tourist trips.

Personally, I don't think the people are going to come out alive, even though the rescue people have recorded 'banging' noises from underwater. Even if they are still alive, getting something that can go down that deep, getting down to them, finding them down there and retrieving them is going to be VERY difficult.

CNN story from the beginning:
https://www.cnn.com/americas/live-news/titanic-submersible-missing-search-06-20-23/index.html

NPR story about the concerns and criticisms:
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/21/1183408455/titan-missing-submarine-oceangate-submersible

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

Well, they're dead.

As the story progressed, it was released that the US Navy had recorded sounds 'consistent with hull failure and implosion of the submersible' at the time comms were lost.

ROV units found a couple of debris fields, with various parts of it scattered about.

Lots and lots of questions being asked. The more that gets revealed, the sketchier this looks.
Apparently there was a father and son who had seats on the last trip, but they backed out due to concerns about the safety (turns out they were right).

It turns out that many of the claims made about the design and testing were not true.

They claimed that Boeing and the University of Washington had helped develop it. Turned out to not be true.
They claimed that Lloyd's of London had 'validated a dive', which means they just observed the operation and said it happened.
Lloyd's declined to certify the vessel.

If the guy in charge hadn't been on it and died, there's a fair amount of speculation that he'd be facing potential criminal charges.

[billeisele 122]

The peeps that previously took the trip are probable thinking, "that wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done."

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

52 minutes ago, billeisele said:

The peeps that previously took the trip are probable thinking, "that wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done."

Some of them were saying that before this final trip.

[gowlerk 1,915]

1 hour ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Some of them were saying that before this final trip.

A little like proximity flying. Only at least proxy flyers aren’t tourists.

[timski 80]

4 hours ago, gowlerk said:

A little like proximity flying. Only at least proxy flyers aren’t tourists.

What do you then call visitors who come to "proxy fly"? 

[billeisele 122]

2 hours ago, timski said:

What do you then call visitors who come to "proxy fly"? 

Experienced risk takers :)

[obelixtim 100]

8 hours ago, timski said:

What do you then call visitors who come to "proxy fly"? 

"On the other load".