But surely there must be more to it than that? Because there is a wide gulf between:
(a) You could die (because obviously it is inherently dangerous to be submerged at such an extreme depth, and no amount of care can eliminate all risk).
(b) You could die (because on top of all that other stuff, this submersible was never tested, even though industry custom is to conduct such testing, especially on submersibles intended to operate at the depths this one will be at, and on top of that we got a strongly worded letter from experts in the field appraising us of the dangers of not properly testing our design, which we duly disregarded).
In the first case, even if the parenthetical information is left unstated, it should be fairly obvious to a reasonable person that such a danger exists, and so any waiver on that basis alone could perhaps be considered knowing/intelligent.
But in the second, absent an express statement conveying all that information, can a waiver will stand up to scrutiny?
Otherwise, as you describe it, one would think it would be fairly easy to craft a rock solid waiver of liability for negligence. Just include up from “You could die” and bam, air tight waiver of liability!
For some reason, that is always the worse part of the whole thing. How stupid and mean is it that someone crying their eyes out has to sign a piece of paper agreeing that they are paying someone to kill their pet.
The wording uses “death”, not “kill”. And I don’t think I agree. With such an important decision, I think it should be stated clearly without euphemisms. It’s not just a question of liability - there’s a risk that somebody genuinely doesn’t understand what is happening. They may not know what “put to sleep” means in this context, and not know what “euthanasia” means.
Compare guidance on telling someone that a loved one has died. The usual recommendation includes stating clearly and simply that they have died without euphemism or circumlocution.
Imagine being me, Jane. As a lawyer, I write the fine print. And in this circumstance, as in many, my profession obligates me to read the fine print. So I do—and it takes a few minutes. All while the receptionist is saying, “Just sign it already; everybody else does.” No, Receptionist, I will read the fine print, and only after I understand what it means, will I sign it. It still hurts, though.
Okay, hijack about pet euthanasia over. Let’s carry on with our discussion of the submersible Titan.
Not at all, neutral buoyancy is unstable: see the Cartesian diver (wikipedia and YouTube). So if by “lost propulsion” you include “lost buoyancy control” then, if they start sinking ever so slightly, they sink faster and faster to the bottom, if they start rising even just a bit, they rise to the surface. Nice as it sounds, no Flying Dutchman at variable depths scenario conceivable.
I was also using “passenger” in the sense used by someone in the Experimental aircraft arena: someone who is not absolutely essential to the operation of the vessel even if they’re doing something interesting/important.
I actually heard someone in a TV spot, someone being interviewed by a reporter, mention that issue along with a few others. It’s out there, but the average person is thinking “air” more than they’re thinking about what makes up what a person breathes.
It could be a problem… we sitting here really don’t know and the OceanGate website is short on such technical details.
Moderating: you have changed the text inside the quote box. That is forbidden under our rules, even if annotated, and this isn’t even annotated. Don’t do it again.
Certainly a valid possibility. That thing is relatively small and the ocean is vast. It took over 70 years to find the Titanic itself, and that thing is huge and they knew more or less where it should be.
Yeah. Summarizing there are 4 time-limiting factors:
Freezing to death in ~35F temps when the heaters give out.
Running out of oxygen, whether bottled or chemically generated.
Building up excess CO2 after your scrubbing capacity is exhausted.
Running out of potable water and the means (if any) to generate more.
And last of all, one fast-acting risk:
The ocean coming inside where you were a moment ago.
Depending on the provisioning, any of the first 4 could be the most limiting factor among them. The ocean coming inside of course can happen at any point and will pretty much instamagically end your scenario.
I’m greatly annoyed by the media coverage of this incident that kept portraying things as if there were a 50-50 chance that the passengers would be saved, all the way til the end, as opposed to being realistic from the outset and somberly saying “There’s probably a 0.1% chance that anyone’s going to emerge alive from this, but various governmental agencies and private entities are still going to do their due diligence.”
