Tourist(s) missing in submarine while trying to reach the Titannic

[Ming the Merciless]

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-coa...-sub-1.6446841

A search and rescue operation is currently underway to locate a submarine that went missing during an expedition to the Titanic.
The U.S. Coast Guard was looking for the submarine Monday morning after it disappeared during the expedition from St. John's, N.L. The infamous 1912 wreck is located more than 600 kilometres southeast of the province in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The trip to the Titanic was being run by OceanGate Expeditions, a U.S.-based company. It uses a five-person submersible named Titan to reach the wreckage 3,800 metres below the surface. OceanGate's website advertises a seven-night voyage to the Titanic for US$250,000 per person, or approximately CA$330,000.
"We are exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely," an OceanGate spokesperson said in an email to CTV News. "Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families."


Those tours are a series of five eight-day missions to the Titanic with the money raised by tourists going towards Titanic research. Posts on social media show the ship launched from the St. John's area last week.

Did they really have 5 people in this?? Or do they have a larger version??

[FlaChief58]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

All in all I'd take instantly turning into tomato soup over falling off a building or whatever pain and consciousness lingers for a bit after a bullet to the brain. One millisecond you're a conscious person, and the next you just cease to exist.

Agreed

For those in that death trap, that was definitely the best outcome barring being rescued. I think the families are probably glad they didn't suffer a slow death waiting to freeze or suffocate at the bottom of the ocean

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by FlaChief58

Agreed

For those in that death trap, that was definitely the best outcome barring being rescued. I think the families are probably glad they didn't suffer a slow death waiting to freeze or suffocate at the bottom of the ocean

Happened so fast they didn't even know it happened, thats absolutely a better fate than all the other options

[DaFace]

This whole thread is interesting, but this final post is kind of a crazy comparison.

As someone said in my mentions this morning “it would be like trying to find a grape in your wine.” But, honestly, more like trying to find a candle in the air after it finished burning.

— Hank Green (@hankgreen) June 23, 2023

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Frazod

Sorry, but all that video did was make me appreciate my ship that much more. Trying to imagine climbing down that ladder to get onboard when I was too drunk to walk is the stuff of nightmares. The only sub I've ever set foot in was the U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and frankly the Indiana doesn't seem that much more spacious. And hotracking? Eww.

I was on a supply ship. The great part of being on a supply ship is half the time we were deployed we'd be in port replenishing. Sure it was hell on earth for the poor bastards in the supply department, but I was in engineering. Also being in engineering I didn't have to do any of the deck ape shit - no chipping and painting for me. I've been to a couple of dozen different ports, mostly in the Med but also in the Caribbean and South America. I've been to Toulon - I'll see that and raise you Rio de Janeiro. Sure we were in Naples a lot, but while it was nasty, dirty and seedy, it was also fun. And had I not gone to Naples, I'd have never gone to Rome. The worst Italian port city was Catania, Sicily, which made Naples look like Beverly Hills. But in the Med, the Spanish ports were the best, particularly Malaga and Palma. France was beautiful, but it was expensive and the people sucked.

As for the seas, sure, we were in some nasty storms and high waves, but on a typical day there'd be nothing more extreme than gentle rolling. I've spent over a year actually underway, and maybe a month and a half of that was in bad weather/heavy seas. Crossing the North Atlantic was the worst, especially heading back to Norfolk when we were empty. But we didn't conduct replenishments in the open Atlantic.

And not sure what you mean by blue tile decks. The tiles in most of the work and berthing spaces were white or black, and in the passageways they were green. Of course, that was nearly 40 years ago.

We had to go aboard a skimmer ship for a "war game" brief and they said that "blue tile" was reserved for officers. We just laughed. Maybe it's not on all ships. I've heard their quarterdecks are the same thing, "thou shalt not walk across it".

And I get it, subs aren't for everybody, but for some of us it was a nice to be on a boat the is very informal.

[Mephistopheles Janx]

[Pogue]

Free Movie on YouTube:



At one point James and a bunch of experts were joking about what James should do if he hears a crack in the sub, the old man who’s done a deep sea dive said you might as well keep going. Then James said, you’ll never hear the one that gets you.

[Macroach]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

We had to go aboard a skimmer ship for a "war game" brief and they said that "blue tile" was reserved for officers. We just laughed. Maybe it's not on all ships. I've heard their quarterdecks are the same thing, "thou shalt not walk across it".

And I get it, subs aren't for everybody, but for some of us it was a nice to be on a boat the is very informal.

In the mid 1990s aboard carriers, blue tile was a thing. I was aboard the Stinkin' Lincoln from 1994-1998. In hindsight, I should have volunteered for subs but the concept of hot racking as a germphobe scared me off at the time.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Macroach

In the mid 1990s aboard carriers, blue tile was a thing. I was aboard the Stinkin' Lincoln from 1994-1998. In hindsight, I should have volunteered for subs but the concept of hot racking as a germphobe scared me off at the time.

A lot gets said about hot-racking as if it's a "most folks hot-rack" deal, and that's not true. It's usually just the junior crew members, or non-quals. That said, the racks they'd bring aboard for extra racks when we had riders of any sort, usually in the torpedo room, were actually rather comfortable.

[B_Ambuehl]

Good article on the engineering & design of the Titan: https://www.compositesworld.com/arti...ep-deep-waters

I feel the whole truth isn't being told on the safety related stuff. From that article it's obvious this wasn't some backyard slap together job. They used a very reputable engineering firm to design the hull & it was built with a safety factor of 2.5x. The vessel was built in '18 and went on at least 2 deep dive missions then and in '19. During the 2nd mission in the bahamas there was reportedly cracking heard on the acoustic hull monitors:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0mSq6ibKKXQ

This was also just after the time when the former engineer that worked for Oceangate complained about it.

But the media isn't reporting that all those concerns were addressed. That vessel was shelved for the deepest dive missions and was re-rated to 3000m: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OceanGate

The hull was replaced by Electroimpact and Janicki Industries in 2020 or 2021, prior to the first trips to Titanic. Several trips were made to the titanic in both '21 & '22. I'm unaware of any safety related complaints that occurred in '21 or after related to the new hull.

At 13,000 feet depth there is about 5500 lbs per square inch of pressure. For reference a great white shark bite is purported to be 4000 lbs per sq inch. The hull was built with a safety factor of 2.5x & if my understanding of the safety factor is correct that means it should have been able to handle 13,750 lbs of pressure per sq inch. So experienced engineers obviously made some grave errors in their calculations or something went horribly wrong.

[ToxSocks]

Originally Posted by B_Ambuehl

Good article on the engineering & design of the Titan: https://www.compositesworld.com/arti...ep-deep-waters

I feel the whole truth isn't being told on the safety related stuff. From that article it's obvious this wasn't some backyard slap together job. They used a very reputable engineering firm to design the hull & it was built with a safety factor of 2.5x. The vessel was built in '18 and went on at least 2 deep dive missions then and in '19. During the 2nd mission in the bahamas there was reportedly cracking heard on the acoustic hull monitors:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0mSq6ibKKXQ

This was also just after the time when the former engineer that worked for Oceangate complained about it.

But the media isn't reporting that all those concerns were addressed. That vessel was shelved for the deepest dive missions and was re-rated to 3000m: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OceanGate

The hull was replaced by Electroimpact and Janicki Industries in 2020 or 2021, prior to the first trips to Titanic. Several trips were made to the titanic in both '21 & '22. I'm unaware of any safety related complaints that occurred in '21 or after related to the new hull.

At 13,000 feet depth there is about 5500 lbs per square inch of pressure. For reference a great white shark bite is purported to be 4000 lbs per sq inch. The hull was built with a safety factor of 2.5x & if my understanding of the safety factor is correct that means it should have been able to handle 13,750 lbs of pressure per sq inch. So experienced engineers obviously made some grave errors in their calculations or something went horribly wrong.

So whatchu thinking here, Kraken?

[Bearcat]

I was super confused, but was then like oh, so about 33% more than a white shark bite, makes total sense now.
*imagines an even larger white shark biting the sub*

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by Mephistopheles Janx

Ohhh

[Kiimo]

Originally Posted by B_Ambuehl

Good article on the engineering & design of the Titan: https://www.compositesworld.com/arti...ep-deep-waters

I feel the whole truth isn't being told on the safety related stuff. From that article it's obvious this wasn't some backyard slap together job. They used a very reputable engineering firm to design the hull & it was built with a safety factor of 2.5x. The vessel was built in '18 and went on at least 2 deep dive missions then and in '19. During the 2nd mission in the bahamas there was reportedly cracking heard on the acoustic hull monitors:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0mSq6ibKKXQ

This was also just after the time when the former engineer that worked for Oceangate complained about it.

But the media isn't reporting that all those concerns were addressed. That vessel was shelved for the deepest dive missions and was re-rated to 3000m: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OceanGate

The hull was replaced by Electroimpact and Janicki Industries in 2020 or 2021, prior to the first trips to Titanic. Several trips were made to the titanic in both '21 & '22. I'm unaware of any safety related complaints that occurred in '21 or after related to the new hull.

At 13,000 feet depth there is about 5500 lbs per square inch of pressure. For reference a great white shark bite is purported to be 4000 lbs per sq inch. The hull was built with a safety factor of 2.5x & if my understanding of the safety factor is correct that means it should have been able to handle 13,750 lbs of pressure per sq inch. So experienced engineers obviously made some grave errors in their calculations or something went horribly wrong.

They built the hull with carbon fiber. They had one gasket. They had carbon fiber touching metal. They sealed the hull with half inch bolts.

Anything else is unimportant.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by B_Ambuehl

Good article on the engineering & design of the Titan: https://www.compositesworld.com/arti...ep-deep-waters

I feel the whole truth isn't being told on the safety related stuff. From that article it's obvious this wasn't some backyard slap together job. They used a very reputable engineering firm to design the hull & it was built with a safety factor of 2.5x. The vessel was built in '18 and went on at least 2 deep dive missions then and in '19. During the 2nd mission in the bahamas there was reportedly cracking heard on the acoustic hull monitors:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0mSq6ibKKXQ

This was also just after the time when the former engineer that worked for Oceangate complained about it.

But the media isn't reporting that all those concerns were addressed. That vessel was shelved for the deepest dive missions and was re-rated to 3000m: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OceanGate

The hull was replaced by Electroimpact and Janicki Industries in 2020 or 2021, prior to the first trips to Titanic. Several trips were made to the titanic in both '21 & '22. I'm unaware of any safety related complaints that occurred in '21 or after related to the new hull.

At 13,000 feet depth there is about 5500 lbs per square inch of pressure. For reference a great white shark bite is purported to be 4000 lbs per sq inch. The hull was built with a safety factor of 2.5x & if my understanding of the safety factor is correct that means it should have been able to handle 13,750 lbs of pressure per sq inch. So experienced engineers obviously made some grave errors in their calculations or something went horribly wrong.

The media (and most people, really) like to pick up on any little thing that seems unusual and that they don't understand as evidence that there was some form of gross negligence in how they designed it (the game controller, the rivets on the outside, fastening things to the inside walls, etc.). The reality is that you don't create a vessel that's capable of getting down there at all without doing a ton of things right, and you can bet that a vast majority of the "obvious" issues that indicate it wasn't well-engineered were perfectly sound decisions.

From people who actually know what they're talking about, it seems like the most likely failure points were either the porthole or the carbon fiber hull, both of which were super strong but that hadn't been thoroughly tested as would have been ideal. Neither of those are inherently bad decisions either, but they thought that they were strong enough to hold up and, apparently, they weren't. (There are other potential failure points, but those are the ones I've heard actual engineers discussing in detail.)

As some have said in this thread, when you push the limits of what's possible, sometimes you get burned. Or in this case, squished.

[ToxSocks]

Originally Posted by DaFace

The media (and most people, really) like to pick up on any little thing that seems unusual and that they don't understand as evidence that there was some form of gross negligence in how they designed it (the game controller, the rivets on the outside, fastening things to the inside walls, etc.). The reality is that you don't create a vessel that's capable of getting down there at all without doing a ton of things right, and you can bet that a vast majority of the "obvious" issues that indicate it wasn't well-engineered were perfectly sound decisions.

From people who actually know what they're talking about, it seems like the most likely failure points were either the porthole or the carbon fiber hull, both of which were super strong but that hadn't been thoroughly tested as would have been ideal. Neither of those are inherently bad decisions either, but they thought that they were strong enough to hold up and, apparently, they weren't. (There are other potential failure points, but those are the ones I've heard actual engineers discussing in detail.)

As some have said in this thread, when you push the limits of what's possible, sometimes you get burned. Or in this case, squished.

I've worked with Carbon Fiber in the past. Built entire body panels out of it. Yeah, i get it. Carbon Fiber is suppose to be this super strong composite.

But at the end of the day, it's a ****ing composite. And when i worked with it, it was really no different than working with Fiberglass. At least in automotive application. So in my mind, it's always been comparable to fiberglass. And idc that it was 5" thick. The concept in general just does not sound right.

So the concept of putting that much pressure on it baffles me the more i think about it.

And i've always been taught that quality is in the details. You can tell a lot about a build by the quality of detail. It's what separates a show winner vs just another RestoMod.

So when the details are kinda half-ass'd, it lends one to believe there's going to be serious underlying issues that you don't see.