# "Titan" submersible investigation begins \[28-June-2023\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** breaking-news\ **Created:** [June 28, 2023, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242 "2023-06-28T16:34:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/641 "2025-08-05T22:45:28Z")
I’m sure that harsh judgment on Rush is only because he wasn’t there to continue his ~~con~~ reasoned explanation of his design inventiveness. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/642 "2025-08-06T00:45:43Z")
I expect lack of money was a major reason. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/643 "2025-08-06T02:41:47Z")
Yes financial pressures were likely a factor. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/644 "2025-08-06T05:22:38Z")
Well, certainly there was a lot of pressure involved. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/645 "2025-08-06T05:35:04Z")
The report clearly states that financial pressures were factors. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/646 "2025-08-06T13:09:54Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Well, certainly there was a lot of pressure involved. [![](https://media.tenor.com/GXgi36aVH3gAAAAM/confused-meme-confused.gif) ](https://media.tenor.com/GXgi36aVH3gAAAAM/confused-meme-confused.gif) ---
**Author:** ![We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/647 "2025-08-08T16:56:10Z")
I haven’t finished reading the whole report, but really damning of Stockton Rush. So much corner cutting and failure to test/investigate. Continues to be a sad and very preventable disaster. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/648 "2025-08-09T13:39:10Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > I beg to differ. Stockton Rush has proved that a cylindrical CF hull can go to 4,000m deep. It can work. Didn’t he prove that it can work sometimes, and fail catastrophically sometimes, and that he couldn’t anticipate failure far enough in advance to save himself? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/649 "2025-08-09T13:50:17Z")
Any passenger car can be a submarine for a little while, once. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/650 "2025-08-09T14:08:45Z")
I can’t remember if I read it here or saw it on a YouTube video, but I remember an explanation like this (if anyone remembers the post I may have gotten this from please let me know, I’m sure I’m plagiarising horribly): Let’s say that the sub had a 10% catastrophic failure rate; that is to say, any sub should survive, on average 10 dives before imploding. You might think, great! We’ll just limit each sub to 5 dives as a nice margin of error, and monitor them constantly as an extra layer. Except this also means that each sub has a 10% chance of imploding on its first dive. What customer would take those odds? The math doesn’t work out with the “5 dives” plan, there is no actual safety margin. So then you might think, Well it just needed more testing and iterative improvements. Possibly, or possibly there’s an intrinsic quality of carbon fiber that will forever doom any craft that uses to have a minimum 10% failure rate. Basically, the Titan proved nothing, except that a carbon fiber sub does not have a 100% failure rate. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/651 "2025-08-09T14:45:04Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > Let’s say that the sub had a 10% catastrophic failure rate; that is to say, any sub should survive, on average 10 dives before imploding. You might think, great! We’ll just limit each sub to 5 dives as a nice margin of error, and monitor them constantly as an extra layer. > > Except this also means that each sub has a 10% chance of imploding on its first dive. What customer would take those odds? The math doesn’t work out with the “5 dives” plan, there is no actual safety margin. Exactly. It’s more like playing Russian Roulette. In fact, with a 10% failure rate on each dive, there is less than a 60% chance of the submersible surviving those five dives. Probability of implosion NOT occuring = (1 - 0.1)5 = 0.59049 And that assumes the failure rate on each dive stays constant at 10%. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/652 "2025-08-09T15:08:23Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > he Titan proved nothing, except that a carbon fiber sub **does not** have a 100% failure rate. Did you mean “does”? What I can’t understand is, if Rush was so rich and was making this thing with his own money, why ws he in a hurry to get it running? Why not take your time and test it several times, in the lab and unmanned missions, before getting into it? No one has ever said that he borrowed money. Did they not say, or did I just miss mention? ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/653 "2025-08-09T15:13:43Z")
No, on any given dive it does not have a 100% failure rate. We know this because Titan did make successful dives. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/654 "2025-08-09T15:15:13Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@steronz](#): > > > > he Titan proved nothing, except that a carbon fiber sub **does not** have a 100% failure rate. > > Did you mean “does”? Everything has a 100% failure rate on a long enough time scale. This is not meaningful information. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/655 "2025-08-09T15:23:25Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Did you mean “does”? No, if it had a 100% failure rate it would have imploded on the first dive. As designed, manufactured and stored (because, Jesus), it had an unacceptably high failure rate and was foredoomed to eventual catastrophe. But it was the compounding stress damage that pushed each subsequent dive after the first to a higher and higher chance of total destruction. It probably started with an unacceptably high failure rate in terms of potential loss of human life. Let’s say on dive #1 it was a couple percent - though that’s pulled entirely out of my ass, no one really know. But each dive upped the ante and by let’s say maybe dive #100 it would have been a 100% guaranteed implosion. Titan completed 13 successful dives prior to catastrophe and dozens of unsuccessful attempts. There exists a universe where Rushton retired his subs after a smaller number of dives and he got lucky and kept going for another decade. The risk would always be there, but as long as he kept rolling sevens he was good. We don’t know what he needed to roll to survive that final trip - a “hard eight”? But it probably wasn’t a guaranteed 100% collapse even then. He just finally crapped out. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/656 "2025-08-09T15:40:43Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > What I can’t understand is, if Rush was so rich and was making this thing with his own money, why was he in a hurry to get it running? > Stockton Rush’s exact wealth at the time of his death wasn’t publicly available, but reports suggest that he had an estimated net worth of 12 million USD to 25 million USD in 2023. [Stockton Rush net worth: Fortune of OceanGate CEO revealed](https://geekspin.co/stockton-rush-net-worth/) ? Are you familiar with the phrase “house rich but cash poor” or with respect to farmers “land rich but cash poor” A lot of his wealth was tied up in Oceangate and thus not available. Oceangate was a private company so its financial reports were not available but it was probably losing $5 million or more a year. While it started out with significant private equity funding those investors quit making new investments when they realized the company wasn’t going anywhere. So Stockton had to come up with the money–but he didn’t have all that much. Thus the pressure. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/657 "2025-08-09T15:41:39Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Thus the pressure. Phrasing! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/658 "2025-08-09T15:48:03Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > Didn’t he prove that it can work sometimes, and fail catastrophically sometimes, and that he couldn’t anticipate failure far enough in advance to save himself? Actually, it turns out the acoustic-based warning systems DOES work! It was pretty clear that the warning system was picking up failure in the hull on prior dives. It’s just that Stockton Rush ignored what it was telling him. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/659 "2025-08-09T15:49:31Z")
Yeah. You’ve never seen a penny pincher until you’ve worked for a greedy psychopath spending _his_ money, not some _other_ schmuck’s money. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242/660 "2025-08-09T15:50:38Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > What I can’t understand is, if Rush was so rich and was making this thing with his own money, why ws he in a hurry to get it running? Why not take your time and test it several times, in the lab and unmanned missions, before getting into it? No one has ever said that he borrowed money. Did they not say, or did I just miss mention? Rush had the money to build the thing… apparently _just_ enough money for that. His pocket was not bottomless. He was “merely” a multi-millionaire and not a billionaire like Mush or Bezos. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titan-submersible-investigation-begins-28-june-2023/986242.md?page=34)