Has anyone watched both the BBC and the Netflix docus? Compare and contrast?
Netflix has much more inputs from Rob McCallum, and his observations and experiences with OceanGate, then deciding he wanted nothing to do with the company and project when Rush announced they weren’t going to be classed, is compelling. I don’t think there was any, or maybe only a little, of Rob McCallum in the BBC show.
In general, Netflix seems to focus more on the OceanGate corporate culture* rather than the incident itself. One rather chilling visual was an org chart that gradually collapsed as people gave up and left; another was a graphic of the audio monitors (the increase in noise level as the craft descended would have a normal person losing bowel control; Rush described it as the carbon fiber “seasoning,” whatever the hell that was supposed to mean).
Other goodies were the former chief engineer quoting Rush saying he wouldn’t have a problem spending $50,000 to destroy a person’s life, and that if the Coast Guard tried to give him trouble he’d simply “buy a Congressman” to make them go away.
* Summed up by Rush saying during a meeting that he didn’t want anyone who wasn’t a True Believer (i.e., willing to accept Rush’s dictates, even if they clashed with the individual’s professional judgement) on the project.
I asked my question because we just watched the Netflix show and I’m wondering if it’s worth getting a trial of Discovery to watch the BBC one, or if it just covers the same ground. Seems like somewhat different focuses.
About that gradually collapsing org chart, two names are rarely, if ever, mentioned:
Scott Griffith, OceanGate Quality Assurance
Dan Scoville, OceanGate Engineering Director
I wonder if they might be among those who may be found to hold some criminal responsibility in OceanGate’s misadventures.
Also, Dan Scoville can be found on LinkedIn.
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The Discovery one definitely had fewer Oceangate execs - Lochridge and Bonnie Carl (the CFO) weren’t in it at all, Nissen was in it, but not nearly as much. It seemed like a third of it was Discovery’s excuse for Indiana Jones talking about his visit to Oceangate and footage from that, and how he eventually pulled the plug on the special they were going to do because he felt it was unsafe. Interesting, but no real new information. I’d say it’s 20-30% info that wasn’t covered in the Netflix one, mostly from the CG hearings. It’s also on Max if you have that though.
Thanks.
The Discovery one also has something the Netflix one doesn’t: descriptions of a LARS platform failure on dive 87 (immediately preceding dive 88 when it imploded less than a week after). Dive 87 was unsuccessful because of that LARS platform failure. In that failure, the LARS platform failed to release the Titan submersible at the water surface, and Titan remained attached by two pivots at its rear. With people inside Titan, including Stockton Rush, this couple described how the wave action repeatedly lifted the front end of Titan off of the LARS and, with the rear end still attached, the Titan repeatedly pivoted and slammed down hard onto the LARS platform. The impacts were described by these occupants as “bone jarring” and they recurred repeatedly for about an hour.
This is extremely alarming because the Titan’s structure was not designed to withstand these kinds of dynamic forces from these repeated impacts. Intense hydrodynamic pressures due to 4,000m dives is one thing, but repeated slamming and banging of the Titan on its cradle against the LARS is another thing altogether.
Steven Ross, a former OceanGate scientific director who was on board when this happened, describes it here —
Discovery also shows how you can quickly and easily spot the visual differences between Titan hull #1 and hull #2 because of the lifting rings that were attached to the titanium rings on hull #2. If you know what to look for, it’s easy to spot (not so much directly by the rings, but more clearly from the cutouts from the white fairing to provide clearances for them), and that is key when watching the documentaries because it becomes clear that hull #1 is shown almost exclusively in all of the pictures, and hull #2 is shown much less frequently.
Discovery also goes into how Stockton Rush was strongly advised against installing those lifting rings because, again, the hull was not designed to bear those significant load forces. Imagine you or I hanging from a pull up bar by only our index fingers.
Between that banging and slamming episode, and the static load forces from lifting the submersible by those lifting rings, the potential damage to the glued joint was never inspected before the doomed dive 88 — the glued joint between the titanium rings and the carbon fiber cylinder.
The Netflix one has a few dive examples where you hear the multiple snap! crackle! and pop! of the carbon fiber hull as it descends and is compressed by the water pressure. This is quite alarming and disturbing! On one test dive to 4,000m with only Stockton Rush inside, the crackling sounds are loud and frequent and he decided to stop short of 4,000m, achieving about 3939m (on dive 39), saying “That’s close enough.”
The sounds of the cracking hull are chilling.
When I heard those sounds, I couldn’t help but wonder, on the failed dive #88, if there was severe crackling and popping heard by the occupants. If that happened, and again this is purely speculation, I can imagine the crackling getting louder and more frequent.
Imagine the sound of a Geiger Counter as it nears a strong radiation source. Is that what the occupants were hearing just before the implosion?
At a depth of 3,341m, Titan sent: “Dropped two wts”
Was that to slow its descent because it was approaching Titanic? Or was that because, “Holy sh*t, this doesn’t sound good, let’s get the f*ck outta here!!”
Were those five occupants scared sh*tless for a few seconds, or even minutes, because they could hear the hull failing?
Was that acoustic data sent to the surface ship? Or was it only retained on board Titan?
Will we ever find out?
Comparing the two documentaries, while there of course has to be some overlap in the information they provide, IMO they are significantly complementary and there is enough information unique to each that I recommend watching them both.
Thoughts?
“If anyone says 3939 isn’t 4000 meters, fuck 'em!” Sure Stocky, baby.
I found the Netflix to be more of a psychological study, and less (but not none) of a technical or engineering discussion. No mention of the crappy job on hull 2’s filament winding, for example.
I find it fascinating in the mind of Rush. He seemed to think that sheer willpower would make it work. And anybody that disagreed wasn’t a team player. That Lochridge guy seemed like the exact person you’d want on such a project. And Rush just attacked him.
I sampled the beginning of the Discovery doc and it looks like a different edit of the Netflix doc. Same font interstitial titles, some of the nearly same footage. I didn’t want to watch both back to back, so we’ll see.
Stockton “Icarus” Rush
Anticarus. He’d have done much better if he’d stayed closer to the sun.
I watched the Netflix one last night. Those pops were horrifying. Only someone with a death wish would’ve gotten back on that sub.
Not sure, but I think I’m reading that dropping just two weights was typical to slow descent because it was approaching the bottom (though not directly on top of Titanic).
Slowing descent as it approached Titanic was my initial guess. But after I watched that show and heard all the popping, I’m thinking more Holy F!
I had never heard them before! I imagined the “acoustic sensors” were there to pick out micro failures in the winding, ones too quiet to hear. That’s why he had that system. Early warning, before it got bad.
oh my god they were LOUD! No mistaking failures there.
What the fuck was he thinking? He puts the acoustic sensors in there to warn of impending failure, and…ignores it? Why even bother in the first place? “Seasoning”! I wish we could bring him back from the dead just to see these docs. “I don’t intend to die.” I submit you did.
A key problem with advanced composites is that their failure transitions are not well understood. I used to work with the materials — resins and prepregs for carbon fiber, Kevlar, and fiberglass back when I worked for Hexcel Corporation long ago, in a previous life. I used to impregnate those fabrics with resins that the chemists devised, cured them in an autoclave on a caul plate that I built, then ran some basic tests on them.
Stockton Rush was known to say that the acoustic sensors would indicate when the hull would fail, so he’d have plenty of “advanced notice”. The problem is, he had no way of knowing exactly how many straws would break the camel’s back.
Well, he found out, didn’t he?
That’s the stupidest part of all. You have to test it to failure to know how many “acoustic events” can happen before total failure. You need data! I bet it was popping like popcorn right before it imploded. "I think we found the li- "
A guy who’s spent his whole life browbeating humans into doing [whatever] that they said was impossible or impractical or at least that they weren’t going to do it and then they do, can eventually get to the place where he believes anything, including physics, can be browbeaten.
After that it’s just a matter of time until physics proves him wrong. Nothing surprising here; this guy was so far up his own ass he could see out his open mouth.
Arrogance. Hubris. It’s the modern meme among the privileged that they can make reality conform to their will. No, you can’t - physics wins every time.
Firstly, I think it very unfair to lump all the privileged together (or pretend the unprivileged don’t ever do such things). Secondly, this is hardly a modern development.