Titanic tourist submarine goes missing in the Atlantic Ocean



If there's a debris field, the hull must have ruptured. It was originally supposed to be 7" thick, but they went the cheap route and settled with a 5" one. Guess the CEO should have went with those EXPERIENCED 50 year old white guys. But hey, diversity is more important.
 
If there's a debris field, the hull must have ruptured. It was originally supposed to be 7" thick, but they went the cheap route and settled with a 5" one. Guess the CEO should have went with those EXPERIENCED 50 year old white guys. But hey, diversity is more important.

It was probably more about the aspect of EXPERIENCED vs. diversity. Hiring a bunch of inexperienced, younger people eager to feel a part of something 'innovative' plays into a dynamic where the CEO could bully his underlings into doing what was told which would have also facilitated all the technical shortcuts, something that team of experienced engineers and subtechs would have thrown major roadblocks up against.
 
If there's a debris field, the hull must have ruptured. It was originally supposed to be 7" thick, but they went the cheap route and settled with a 5" one. Guess the CEO should have went with those EXPERIENCED 50 year old white guys. But hey, diversity is more important.

Don't make it political. These are people's lives.
 
13,000 feet of strong steel cable, a really strong winch, hope the thing has an anchor point, and surround it would buoyant materials.

The question is can they get that setup before the air runs out.
Oxygen has already run out. Now it is a search and recover mission.
 


"The landing frame and rear cover of the missing Titan submersible have been discovered on the ocean floor, according to experts involved in the search, who say it points to the vessel suffering a 'catastrophic implosion' that will have claimed all five of the lives on board. "


 
The good news is, if you can have any good news in a situation like this, they wouldn't have suffered like they would have if they were sitting and running out of air. This would have been an instantaneous death.
 
The disregard for safety of Stockton Rush and his cobbled together submersible was well known by those in the business of deep sea diving. I guess those poor souls who died with him were confident they would be safe because he was on board, but I'm pretty sure they didn't know the whole story.
 
Seven surfacing mechanisms on board Titan. They include:

  • Three "enormous," "beat-up" lead construction pipes called "triple weights"
  • Two "roll weights"
  • Several ballast bags
  • Self-dissolving bonds on the ballast bags
  • Thrusters to propel the sub upward
  • Detachable sub legs
  • An airbag to inflate
The pipes, or "triple weights," as 2022 mission director Kyle Bingham told Pogue they were called, are hydraulically driven and can be operated from inside the vessel.

No electricity is required to operate them. When they drop away, the sub gains buoyancy.

If those don't work, the roll weights can be shifted off the sides of the sub manually.

Thanks much for this information, BTW. I am a little late replying.

I had been trying to find this information for days, and I see that it finally started getting coverage today after I saw your post early this a.m.

This is what I had assumed at the beginning - that there should be multiple redundant mechanisms to surface, and if this was the case, then it really indicated a catastrophic failure had taken place. Could not find this info anywhere.

I bet (with strong certainty) that the US Navy heard the submersible implode and that they suspected all along that the crew died days ago. Still worth the search though.
 
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That picture really speaks a thousand words. $250k for a seat on that, where your life depends on those pipes and bags releasing. My gosh.
 
4,000 meters is very deep, but 63 years ago, in 1960, the Trieste went 12,000 meters deep, to the deepest point in the world, the Marianas Trench. The technology has obviously been around for a while to reach the depths of the Titanic.

Holy cow, a crewed mission to 11,000 meters in 1960!!!

"The descent into the Challenger Deep took nearly five hours. Once the Bathyscaphe Trieste reached the sea floor, Walsh and Piccard observed their surroundings. The ship's light allowed them to see what they described as a dark brown "diatomaceous ooze" covering the sea floor, along with shrimp and some fish that appeared to resemble flounder and sole. Since the Plexiglas viewing window had cracked during the descent, the men were only able to spend about twenty minutes on the sea floor. Then, they unloaded the ballasts (nine tons of iron pellets, and tanks filled with water) and began to float back to the ocean's surface. The ascent was much quicker than the dive, taking only three hours and fifteen minutes."

Source:

Fascinating.
 
Holy cow, a crewed mission to 11,000 meters in 1960!!!

"The descent into the Challenger Deep took nearly five hours. Once the Bathyscaphe Trieste reached the sea floor, Walsh and Piccard observed their surroundings. The ship's light allowed them to see what they described as a dark brown "diatomaceous ooze" covering the sea floor, along with shrimp and some fish that appeared to resemble flounder and sole. Since the Plexiglas viewing window had cracked during the descent, the men were only able to spend about twenty minutes on the sea floor. Then, they unloaded the ballasts (nine tons of iron pellets, and tanks filled with water) and began to float back to the ocean's surface. The ascent was much quicker than the dive, taking only three hours and fifteen minutes."

Source:

Fascinating.
I really wish the late Paul Allen were alive, or maybe some other billionaire (James Cameron?) with an interest in the ocean would finance a visit to that trench again with high tech lighting and high definition cameras, it would be fascinating to see what lurks in those depths.
 
Moral of the story, dont trust your life on Carbon Fiber. I dont think you can do non destructive testing on a 5 inch thick carbon fiber pressure hull. Multiple layers? I wonder how it is built, honeycombs? That thick, to many variables to do an adequate NDT inspection. At that depth, the hull has got to be squeezed inward by inches.

Something like that, with hindsight, you dont trust other's lives with it. And you certainly dont use it over and over and over.

I wonder how many dives the sub made.

Best to stick with HY-80, HY-100, HY-120 carbon steel, I imagine steel is much more flexible than Carbon fiber, returning to it's orginal shape sort of like a rubber band. Elasticity would be the word.
 
Moral of the story, dont trust your life on Carbon Fiber. I dont think you can do non destructive testing on a 5 inch thick carbon fiber pressure hull. Multiple layers? I wonder how it is built, honeycombs? That thick, to many variables to do an adequate NDT inspection. At that depth, the hull has got to be squeezed inward by inches.

Something like that, with hindsight, you dont trust other's lives with it. And you certainly dont use it over and over and over.

I wonder how many dives the sub made.

Best to stick with HY-80, HY-100, HY-120 carbon steel, I imagine steel is much more flexible than Carbon fiber, returning to it's orginal shape sort of like a rubber band. Elasticity would be the word.
In the airgun world, we use carbon fiber bottles pressurized up to 4500 lbs per square inch. With a Max rating a good bit higher. Even in these applications it is known, and accepted that these things have a "shelf life". Based not only on age, but also frequency of subjecting the bottle to high, pressure, and empty. Which is ill advised for the longevity of the cylinder, and ultimately the shooters saftey. It's in the name carbon "fiber". Each time you compress, or stretch it; fibers break. Carbon fiber pressure containment vessels are a "consumable". This dick head clearly didn't heed know knowledge...
 

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