News Titanic Tours Submersible missing in atlantic ocean

[CJrider]

I'm non groundhog expert, but since they are running out of air I would assume they'd bring them up as quickly as possible, giving everyone a horrible case of the bends, but then they'll have a boat with a decompression chamber onboard and they'll immediately throw everyone inside that, and hope they don't die before they make it inside.

Positive note is the air is pressurized to surface on the interior of a submersible, no one is getting the bends! Negative is that unless they're floating on the surface there is absolutely 0% chance of a rescue within the remaining timeframe, probably not within triple the remaining timeframe.

 

[Revolver]

this dude seems to be taking this well.

 

[Doughie99]

In an interview with a submarine captain posted a few pages back mentioned even if the submarine somehow was caught on something it wouldn't explain why their communications would be down.

I'm leaning toward it imploding. Although the sub is supposedly safe to the depth of 4000 meters, and the Titanic wreckage is at 3800 meters.



And others have mentioned this 'tourist expedition' has been performed eight times, to a few dozen times, previously in this same sub.... so many things could have still gone wrong.

I'm a trained metallurgist, mostly related to welding, and I can testify that micro-cracks can form and be impossible to detect with the naked eye.

The Titanic wreck's depth is 3800 meters, and the water pressure is measured as '400 atmospheres.' I vaguely recall from the late 90s that's 2400 pounds per cubic inch.

That amount of pressure could cause a micro-crack to expand rapidly. The scary aspect about manned deep sea submarines is there's no way microcracks can be detected before 'the plunge' into the depths.

yes it's 380atm, or 2.5 metric tonnes per square inch at 3820meters depth (saltwater).
Problem in my view with the hull is it's only titanium on the one end - the hemispherical end-cap. The rest is allegedly 5inch thick carbon-fiber but that CAN form cracks and holes and tears and weaknesses and a guy who used to work for that company raised this as a major issue from "pressure cycling" (basically putting the structure under repeated cycle of very strong pressure, from multiple dives). Lawsuits resulted and the company got rid of him. God knows how they JOINED the 2 materials together - the titanium and the carbon-fiber. That's a potential weak-point. He also said the viewing window was NOT rated to anywhere near 12,500ft depth. (titanic depth).

Also.... if the sub was only rated for up to 4000meters and they are regularly going to 3820meters, you are therefore pushing it to 95% of it's rated capability and I would want FAR more engineering margin than that if people's lives depended on it.

I just don't think carbon-fiber is a good material for this application. It's very strong in CERTAIN directions but it can degrade and have weak spots and it CAN shatter too. And it's strength depends on how well it's laid and how well it's baked in an Auto-clave. Making it is not like metal at all -- it requires multiple layers criss-crossed in specific angles to each other etc.
Apparently the cylindrical part of the hull was made from it, apart from the titanium end-cap. The join I think would be an issue and you really don't need lightweight in this application, you need 100% reliable strength and resistance to fatigue, cracking, corrosion, tears in your material etc.

 

[GordoBarraBJJ]

"A multimillionaire thrill-seeker who was supposed to be on the missing Titanic sub said he pulled out over fears it was “cutting too many corners” — and was run with a $40 videogame controller."


^^^ this motherfucker dodged a bullet

https://nypost.com/2023/06/21/thrill-seeker-quit-titanic-trip-over-corner-cutting-fears/
You get what you pay for.

 

[Lord_Impaler]

supposedly 96hours with 5 people on board. If one or more people has already died, then the remaining O2 will last the remaining people longer, obviously.

But that's just an estimate. Different people consume O2 at different rates.
I do hope they have a CO2 scrubber on board, which removes carbon-dioxide from the air.
But given how cheapskate this company is, I doubt they even put a CO2 scrubber on-board. Standard equipment for spacecraft, submarines etc.

The more i read about OceansGate's philosophy the more i think this sub was built and designed 'on-the-cheap' with minimal adherence to safety-first. I hope the company gets shut-down after this incident. Looks like the CEO will be one of the casualties, he is on the sub.

Dudes 100 percent been strangled to death already.

 

[cooks1]

it's fully pressurized so .....should be no issues with decompression. I'm not a diver but I have some friends who are and I'm pretty certain that there's no need to have the occupants in a decompression chamber as their bodies are not subjected to increased pressure at any point in the dive (well...unless there's a catastrophic failure.....)

It's not just about their bodies being subjected to the pressure. It's also about the air they are breathing being subjected to the pressure. Which it may not be. But they have been down there a lot longer than they were expecting to be. Its possible the emergency air reserves might be compressed. I have no idea, thus the questions.

 

[Sara]

this dude seems to be taking this well.

He’s the stepson, I’m going to hope this is a fake account or that if it’s real he’s left virtually nothing.

 

[Sweater of AV]

Still no luck eh? Must be a scene inside there right now. Very sad.

 

[GordoBarraBJJ]

supposedly 96hours with 5 people on board. If one or more people has already died, then the remaining O2 will last the remaining people longer, obviously.

But that's just an estimate. Different people consume O2 at different rates.
I do hope they have a CO2 scrubber on board, which removes carbon-dioxide from the air.
But given how cheapskate this company is, I doubt they even put a CO2 scrubber on-board. Standard equipment for spacecraft, submarines etc.

The more i read about OceansGate's philosophy the more i think this sub was built and designed 'on-the-cheap' with minimal adherence to safety-first. I hope the company gets shut-down after this incident. Looks like the CEO will be one of the casualties, he is on the sub.

He literally bragged about this.

"You know, at some point, safety is just pure waste," Rush told CBS' David Pogue during an episode of his "Unsung Science" podcast. "I mean, if you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed, don't get in your car, don't do anything. At some point, you're going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question."

"The reporter also found that the company seemingly made use of "off-the-shelf components" such as a cheap video game controller, for its submarine."

https://futurism.com/the-byte/titanic-submarine-ceo-safety-waste

I may not have 250k to splurge on thrill seeking but I got out of bed, stopped for an ice coffee and sitting in a nice comfy chair at work.

 

[Doughie99]

It's not just about their bodies being subjected to the pressure. It's also about the air they are breathing being subjected to the pressure. Which it may not be. But they have been down there a lot longer than they were expecting to be. Its possible the emergency air reserves might be compressed. I have no idea, thus the questions.

yeah I admit i'm not 100% sure. I do know that failure to have a CO2 scrubber installed and running will make death nastier than without one. I am fairly certain they do not have a CO2 scrubber installed in that small space.

All of this is academic unless the U.S. Navy or Canadians or someone gets a VEHICLE on-scene that can tow it to the surface OR attach a cable (2.5miles long prob required) to winch it to the surface (assuming it is currently on the seabed which seems likely). I have not read one report of a device capable of actually RESCUING the submersible being on-site.

Personally I think the marine / military and rescue experts who are on-site currently know very well this is futile and the crew are doomed.
I just think for PR reasons, they are not admitting that publicly.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

I was thinking the same thing as it makes the most sense. But then there's the banging noises.

I'm still not convinced.

According to some posters in the thread, banging on the side of the sub with bare fists could be heard for miles underwater.

If they're correct about that, I don't trust the media... or someone on the internet... to fabricate that soundbite, add it to the graphic and upload it to twitter.

I may be wrong, but my gut is telling me the sub imploded. That was my gut feeling ever since I first heard of the story, so I'm biased.

Just being 100% honest.

If the sub is found and discovered to have imploded, I'm gonna be like...

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Interview with a Coast Guard expert.

I'm listening to it now. I'll post cliffs.

 

[Sara]

Interview with a Coast Guard expert.

I'm listening to it now. I'll post cliffs.

Play by play as you listen please

 

[Damo321]

Simply can’t imagine a worse way to go… After killing the CEO I would have topped myself by now (before the other passengers started looking to satisfy their sexual urges)

 

[billiam]

Outright banning deep sea tourist expeditions would not be the right thing to do. People should have the right to explore.

However, some regulations that would minimize the risk of this type of catastrophic failure would be a good idea. I get the impression this particular company took some liberties, and that should be addressed with regulations in the future.

There are already regulations in place. It will be interesting to see what liberties SeaGate might have taken to circumvent the regulations. It also begs the question, was this really tourism in the traditional sense? I'm all for making tourism as safe as possible and while everyone calls this deep sea tourism, their website doesn't use that word. They present it as a survey expedition, a scientific mission.

 

[Bojka]

There are already regulations in place. It will be interesting to see what liberties SeaGate might have taken to circumvent the regulations. It also begs the question, was this really tourism in the traditional sense? I'm all for making tourism as safe as possible and while everyone calls this deep sea tourism, their website doesn't use that word. They present it as a survey expedition, a scientific mission.

It looks like the standards were optional. And he only needed to adhere to them in order to say that the vessel is approved by that body. At least that's what it appears to be.

That organization wrote the CEO a letter pleading with him to adhere to their standards (which would require testing witnessed by them as a 3rd party), but he said that they were stifling his innovation.

Their main concern was whether the shell of the vessel could withstand the pressure at the ocean floor. So perhaps that's what happened.

 

[13Seconds]

Simply can’t imagine a worse way to go… After killing the CEO I would have topped myself by now (before the other passengers started looking to satisfy their sexual urges)

How do you even suicide in this situation? It sounds impossible.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

yes it's 380atm, or 2.5 metric tonnes per square inch at 3820meters depth (saltwater).

2.5 tons per cubic inch?

 

[Thrawn33]

What if your boat isn't registered?

Assimilated to Stateless....

Good luck.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Play by play as you listen please

*They have less than 20 hours of air left.