Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

[Desu Mountain]

A transcript of comms between the Operation Ship and the Titan may have been leaked.
Seems that 'ol Stockton fucked up, and they had lots of time to contemplate it before it imploded during an uncontrolled decent after dropping all of their ballast and the landing skids.
Whoops.

TL;DW, twenty minutes of blind panic and then oblivion.

 

[Hall of Cost Payer]

A transcript of comms between the Operation Ship and the Titan may have been leaked.
Seems that 'ol Stockton fucked up, and they had lots of time to contemplate it before it imploded during an uncontrolled decent after dropping all of their ballast and the landing skids.
Whoops.

So if this thing is accurate, they descended around 1.5 times as fast as they should. And at the bottom of the ocean they heard loud crackling and all “you're about to die" sensore were red. Then the ascend was about 0.5 to 0.25 as fast as it should be.

The guy making the video speculated that there was a small hole, letting water in which made the sub much heavier and thus leading to the faster descent and basically no ascend.

But commenters on YouTube seem to have a better idea. Bte, somebody mentioned that the towing rig was made for lakes and not the fucking Atlantic ocean. The idea that makes sense is that either a previous dive or the lake towing damaged the protective coating of the carbon fiber. The carbon fiber then could be porous and absorb water like a sponge.

If these transcripts are true, it's criminal that they didn't act on the fast descent rates.

 

[Oxyjen]

Wow. Have to say the transcript (well, it’s not a transcript it’s the verbatim messages, if true) looks pretty realistic.

It was stated early on about the descent rate being too fast and dropping ballast being one of the last messages, but to see the comms and the length of time involved is chilling.

Skeptical if it was overweight due to water ingress (it should take a *lot* of water) or simply another unrelated fuckup, about calculating the ballast and buoyancy. Sounds like it was descending too fast from minute 1.

 

[Procrastinhater]

If these transcripts are true, it's criminal that they didn't act on the fast descent rates.

Yeah if these are legit they were decending at a fucking horrifying rate, its what made me think they just cannoned into the seabed at first, but it seems they managed to stop descent and start to climb again when they were 400 meters from the bottom, at which time they were a full fucking kilometer deeper than they should have been, that descent rate was terrifying, and for Rush to just let it continue until the last fucking minute before attempting to stop it is insane, as soon as they realized they were 500 meters deeper than they should have been and still accelerating he should have aborted the dive, if he'd taken action when they first realized they were plummeting downwards, he may have had time to get to the surface, this bastard was almost at the bottom with the fucking hull making gunshot loud popping noises and all his warning systems light flashing red before he even began to correct the problem.
The guy was fucking nuts and their last 20 minutes must have been horrifying.

 

[Oxyjen]

Yeah if these are legit they were decending at a fucking horrifying rate, its what made me think they just cannoned into the seabed at first, but it seems they managed to stop descent and start to climb again when they were 400 meters from the bottom, at which time they were a fucll fucking kilometer deeper than they should have been, that descent rate was terrifying, and for Rush to just let it continue until the last fucking minute before attempting to stop it is insane, as soon as they realized they were 500 meters deeper than they should have been and still accelerating he should have aborted the dive, if he'd taken action when they first realized they were plummeting downwards, he may have had time to get to the surface, this bastard was almost at the bottom with the fucking hull making gunshot loud popping noises and all his warning systems light flashing red before he even began to correct the problem.
The guy was fucking nuts and their last 20 minutes must have been horrifying.

Right. Once they released the ballast it should have a shot up like a cork. They *might* have made it. Having to use the thrusters and still barely moving is awful,

I’m convincing myself they set it up too heavy on purpose to try to speed up the descent, but just guessed and overdid it.

 

[AnOminous]

This was definitely not too retarded for rich people. Remember that time they imploded a global economy because they thought they could jerry-rig together a single-point failure financial system based on loaning large sums of money to people with bad credit? This was small potatoes by comparison.

That wasn't retarded. They lost nothing because when the economy imploded, they just had their political cronies give them a giant sack of money to make up for it, then bought up a bunch of now depreciated real estate assets for pennies on the dollar, ending up richer than ever before.

After everything I've learned about it, I'm convinced if I had the same amount of money Rush put into this thing I could build a safer sub myself.

Me too because I would have hired people who knew what the fuck they were doing.

And even then I still wouldn't go down in the motherfucker myself.

OK but technically we won’t be killing any passengers…

https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-re...submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen

His legal acumen was apparently on par with his submarine engineering.

 

[Procrastinhater]

I'm convincing myself they set it up too heavy on purpose to try to speed up the descent, but just guessed and overdid it.

You know maybe you're right, both Rush and control seemed way too blasé about that descent rate, they'd done that dive before, they knew what the dive profile should have looked like, they seemed mighty nonchalant about the way they were rocketing to the bottom, seriously this thing is fucking insane, literally every new piece of info that comes out makes it look worse.

 

[Botchy Galoop]

Joy. Novel nightmare fuel. Fuck.

 

[Procrastinhater]

Me too because I would have hired people who knew what the fuck they were doing.

And even then I still wouldn't go down in the motherfucker myself.

I watched an interview with Cameron where he said to build an Alvin from the ground up would cost about 50 Million to make one to the current retrofit standards.
Rush was a fucking billionaire, he could have afforded that, and its a proven system thats been used since the 1960's, yeah it holds two less people than the RMS Fleshlight but it'll get them there and back safely plus its designed to carry an ROV that can get your tourists up close shots that are impossible to get from a manned submersible anyway without risking... ok I guess thats not a consideration for a guy like Rush, but still, I know what I'd rather have.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

This is fucking out there. Holy shit.

I saw an interview with Ballard, the Titanic discoverer, soon after the wreck was found, and he casually mentioned that the submersible was ascending when it imploded. There is only one eay, he could have known. He must have been tipped off from somebody within OceanGate.

Holy shit, that's messed up.

 

[not william stenchever]

Babe, wake up. New horrifying and retarded way to die just dropped.

 

[Procrastinhater]

This is fucking out there. Holy shit.

I saw an interview with Ballard, the Titanic discoverer, soon after the wreck was found, and he casually mentioned that the submersible was ascending when it imploded. There is only one eay, he could have known. He must have been tipped off from somebody within OceanGate.

Holy shit, that's messed up.

A sudden implosion out of nowhere is almost merciful, but the sheer horror they must have experienced during that last 20 minutes with the thing just refusing to climb, all the warning lights going off, and the hull making those noises

Spoiler: Sub Captains Warning

I wish I could find the interview with the Honduras sub captain, the way he described it was scary as fuck, this guy has made two thousand dives, over ten thousand hours apparently, and he said he's never been so freaked out, this was only the second dive, and he said Titan was making noises like shotgun blasts even on the way up, and he said that was the scariest thing, it means the hull is storing energy as its being compressed, which means it loading up like a fucking bomb, titanium and steel groan but they don't make that banging noise

like gunshots, thats about the most pant shitting way to go I can think of, knowing you're fucked, just waiting for it, wondering if every bang is going.to be the last.
Literally every new piece of info is worse than the last.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

A sudden implosion out of nowhere is almost merciful, but the sheer horror they must have experienced during that last 20 minutes with the thing just refusing to climb, all the warning lights going off, and the hull making those noises

Yeah.

Here is the video of Ballard saying they were ascending when they imploded. He fucking knew.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jJ_SSU-ocU

 

[Oxyjen]

Yeah.

Here is the video of Ballard saying they were ascending when they imploded. He fucking knew.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jJ_SSU-ocU

Yeah, James Cameron said he knew the same details soon after the alarm was raised. It’s a small community.

Here from about 2:50. And check out the last 10 seconds… https://youtu.be/5XIyin68vEE

 

[Procrastinhater]

Yeah.

Here is the video of Ballard saying they were ascending when they imploded. He fucking knew.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jJ_SSU-ocU

Theres a comment on that video thats exactly right, and echoes what I saw a poster on this very thread say, Cameron has stated he wishes he'd been more vocal, but Rush was warned by literally every person with experience in the field that his sub was reckless and a disaster waiting to happen, and he blew them all off, shit the motherfucker even sued the head engineer who warned him the thing wasn't fit for purpose.
Likely a combination of narcissism and growing up a rich asshole surrounded by sycophants and yes men, he thought he was smarter than everyone else.
If Cameron had made a public scene over it Rush would likely have made the fucking thing even shittier out of spite.
Found the interview with the Sub Captain in Honduras, guy called Karl Stanley. He's been building his own submersibles since he was 14 and currently owns one of the the deepest diving private hire submersibles in the world.
This is the guy that was with Rush when the Titan was making those shotgun noises and tried to warn him.
Good interview.

Stanley seems a little pissed off that Rush has likely damaged the tourist sub businesses rep for quite some time to come.

EDIT- It seems YouTube is doing that awkward bullshit where it forces you to watch on site instead of embedding.
I was going to upload a local archive but when I went to download it the smallest file size is 64 fucking megabytes and its not worth the hassle, I'm also not at home atm so I cant figure out anyway to make it the size more reasonable.
Still worth a watch if anyone is interested I think.

 

[Betonhaus]

Stanley seems a little pissed off that Rush has likely damaged the tourist sub businesses rep for quite some time to come

Yeah no shit, now everyone knows about a rickety unsafe one and compare it to everyone else's subs. The only way to quickly fix that perception is to go down there in a SAFE and certified sub and advertise the shit out of it.

 

[GunCar Gary]

Theres a comment on that video thats exactly right, and echoes what I saw a poster on this very thread say, Cameron has stated he wishes he'd been more vocal, but Rush was warned by literally every person with experience in the field that his sub was reckless and a disaster waiting to happen, and he blew them all off, shit the motherfucker even sued the head engineer who warned him the thing wasn't fit for purpose.
Likely a combination of narcissism and growing up a rich asshole surrounded by sycophants and yes men, he thought he was smarter than everyone else.
If Cameron had made a public scene over it Rush would likely have made the fucking thing even shittier out of spite.
Found the interview with the Sub Captain in Honduras, guy called Karl Stanley. He's been building his own submersibles since he was 14 and currently owns one of the the deepest diving private hire submersibles in the world.
This is the guy that was with Rush when the Titan was making those shotgun noises and tried to warn him.
Good interview.

Stanley seems a little pissed off that Rush has likely damaged the tourist sub businesses rep for quite some time to come.

EDIT- It seems YouTube is soing that awkward bullshit where it forces you to watch on site instead of embedding.
I was going to upload a local archive but when I went to download it the smallest file size is 64 fucking megabytes and its not worth the hassle, I'm also not at home atm so I cant figure out anyway to make it the size more reasonable.
Still worth a watch if anyone is interested I think.

archived at 360p since that's the highest resolution that i'm allowed to upload

 

[God's drunkest driver]

And apparently he flew to Vegas in an experimental plane which he built himself.

Meh, not really a good indicator of anything. Building an airplane ranges from scratch builds of complex new designs to nearly complete kits that you bolt and rivet together, to spartan fixed gear kitplanes in a assembled in a factory environment where you only do the legal minimum to meet the definition of self-built necessary for kit plane status, supported and educated by trained personnel. A kit airplane is trivial compared to a novel carbon fiber submersible capable of reaching the Titanic wreck and is also trivially easy to inspect for safety in comparison. This guy was more cavalier toward deep sea exploration than elon musk is toward spaceflight, a homebuilt airplane doesn't even make the list of top stupid things this guy was responsible for.

 

[the_real_debbil]

A sudden implosion out of nowhere is almost merciful, but the sheer horror they must have experienced during that last 20 minutes with the thing just refusing to climb, all the warning lights going off, and the hull making those noises

Spoiler: Sub Captains Warning

I wish I could find the interview with the Honduras sub captain, the way he described it was scary as fuck, this guy has made two thousand dives, over ten thousand hours apparently, and he said he's never been so freaked out, this was only the second dive, and he said Titan was making noises like shotgun blasts even on the way up, and he said that was the scariest thing, it means the hull is storing energy as its being compressed, which means it loading up like a fucking bomb, titanium and steel groan but they don't make that banging noise

like gunshots, thats about the most pant shitting way to go I can think of, knowing you're fucked, just waiting for it, wondering if every bang is going.to be the last.
Literally every new piece of info is worse than the last.

Cheezus tap dancing Christ, what did Rush say to Stanley to even convince him to test this bullshit? There's a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking with regard to the victims who "should have known better," but if a captain with 10,000+ hours of dive time could be convinced to go & their own engineer had to damn near cagematch to get info on the port window that was deliberately withheld from him, what the fuck was this guy telling clients, other sub operators, & his own crew?
Just when I think my opinion of Stockton Rush couldn't conceivably get lower, somehow his behavior gets a shovel & starts to dig.

 

[The Ugly One]

somebody mentioned that the towing rig was made for lakes and not the fucking Atlantic ocean.

I like how every day, we learn another way Stockton Rush managed to be retarded. This man was fractally stupid.