I think the media’s running out of news stories …
Titanic tourist submarine missing 6-19-2023 (Debris field found, passengers presumed dead. 06-22-23)
Gates had the opportunity to travel down in the submersible while it was still in the testing phase for the Titanic dive, in hopes of filming the descent to the ship as part of a future episode.
Gates said the submersible did not perform well during his trip and he decided against filming it altogether due to safety concerns.
[Twitter image, followed by text of the tweet]
“To those asking, #Titan did not perform well on my dive. Ultimately, I walked away from a huge opportunity to film Titanic due to my safety concerns w/ the @OceanGate platform. There’s more to the history and design of Titan that has not been made public – much of it concerning,” Gates warned.
We love watching Expedition Unknown. Gates’s goofy, over-the-top, credulous performance is a hoot. He often gets into ‘dangerous’ situations, and plays them off not-quite-convincingly (at least to us). Getting into an unproven submersible is something he would not be able to goof his way out of. I’m glad he declined.
Another Josh Gates fan here, and very glad he made that decision. He does face some real dangers at times, and I’d say he’s pretty careful about his own and his crew’s safety generally. It must have been hella tempting to take that trip for a guy like him.
Okay, hijack over. Are the media now acknowledging that no matter what, the crew have all died? This is the current headline on CNN online: “OceanGate co-founder: Rescue window is longer than people think.” Whistling past the graveyard?
ETA: The guy also said this: “Thursday will be a ‘critical day in this search and rescue mission,’ he added.”
From CNN:
The US Coast Guard says a debris field was discovered by an remotely operated vehicle near the Titanic submersible search area, and authorities are “evaluating the information,” officials tweeted Thursday.
It is unclear if this debris field is connected to the missing submersible.
The US Coast Guard also has announced a press briefing at 3 p.m. ET.
Sounds like Tom Friedman 20 years ago, but obviously with a shorter timespan: “the next 24 hours will be critical.”
I bet their wavefunction suffered a truly spectacular collapse. Shame there was no observer alive to see it. Or at least alive long enough to see it.
Well, if this is actually so and it means what I think it means, at least it was lightning fast.
May or may not be related:
https://twitter.com/USCGNortheast/status/1671907901542211584
The current cartoon from spiegel.de, one of my main news sources:
The captions say, from left to right:
“More than 500 refugees missing in the Mediterranean Sea”
“Go change the channel”
“5 submarine passengers missing in the Atlantic”
“Terrible! Just imagine! Those poor people”
ETA: for those who don’t know: The refugee tragedy with 500 people missing is a real story and has happened a few days ago near Greece.
Yesterday I listened to the Unsung Science podcast that featured Stockton Rush and Oceangate. It really helps put a lot of this current drama into perspective.
The sub had a carbon dioxide scrubber in it, as well as three redundant systems. The first backup is a series of “strips” (he described them as being like flypaper strips) that are pulled out of a package and taped to the ceiling and that somehow neutralize or absorb the CO2. The second backup I’m not remembering because I listened to the podcast yesterday, and the third backup was simply some onboard SCUBA tanks that the passengers could use in an emergency. It sounded like the primary CO2 scrubber was built to outlast the oxygen supply.
A few other things stood out to me:
-
In normal operation the sub had the ability to maintain constant communication with the mother ship floating above. They used acoustic signals to send text messages back and forth. Thus on a normal dive there was no period of radio silence. When this story originally broke it was noted that the sub lost communication with the mother ship ~2 hours into the dive. There was some nonsensical speculation on CNN about how the sub couldn’t communicate during a dive because Reasons, which might explain the lateness of the mother ship reporting the sub missing, but that’s clearly not the case. On a normal dive the two vessels were messaging back and forth continuously.
-
Ballast: the sub had several different ballast systems, but one I thought was particularly ingenious. Some of the ballast – enough that, if detached, the sub would rise to the surface – was attached to the sub by a water activated fusible link. Essentially the water slowly dissolves a special element of the connecting apparatus and after 18 hours in the drink the link fully dissolves and the ballast simply drops away. Thus even with no mechanical / hydraulic / electrical / human intervention the sub was designed to ascend to the surface after 18 hours. Now, I’m no engineer, but personally I would’ve designed that fusible link mechanism to activate an EPRIB in the event that the fusible link actually separates. the sub would float to the surface and immediately be sending out a locator beacon, even if the crew is dead or incapacitated. Put it on its own power supply independent of the rest of the sub’s systems to ensure the EPIRB works even if everything else doesn’t. Seems easy enough to do, but what do I know. If there was a breach of the hull and it’s now filled with water rather than air, I don’t know how that would effect buoyancy when those ballasts drop away.
Another ballast system consisted of huge cylindrical weights laying horizontally on supports attached to either side of the sub. The were held in place by gravity only so to detach those weights all the sub needed to do roll a bit and the weights would simply fall away. Apparently the sub was designed so that in an emergency such as a failure of the control surfaces or similar problem that the occupants of the sub could pile onto one side thus creating enough of a roll to accomplish this.
-
Finally, Rush is (or was, as is most likely the case now) such an egotistical blowhard that I question whether any of the above safety systems were ever tested in any significant capacity. He was confident that his sub worked, worked well, and would always work and thus minor details such as inspections and tests were, in his mind, likely a waste of time. He was in it for the money – no surprise there – but forgot that lesson so many of learn early in life and that Steve Irwin similarly forgot: when you play with fire, someday you’re going to get burnt.
Exactly!
From a couple days ago:
Two thoughts.
-
In the post 1970s era, why would anyone name their project “[whatever] Gate?” Just seems like inviting Fate to smite thee. Doubly so if there’s any hubris in your project.
-
Why would anyone choose to be a customer or participant in a “[whatever] Gate?” Once again Fate says there will be a scandal and you’ll probably figure prominently in it as a victim.
This is SO informative. Thanks!
Icarus flew too close to the sun.
Wow! That simultaneously makes me think (1) OceanGate isn’t as stupid, and this sub wasn’t quite as bad a kludge, as the game controller, uncertified window, and the CEO’s idiotic pronouncements would suggest, and (2) with all those redundant ways to surface, it’s that much more likely that the sub simply imploded. 
If it ended tragically, an implosion is the best outcome. No suffering.
At this point, i assume they are all dead, and i hope it was a sudden explosion.
I watched some movie years ago that was about slavery, or a slave, or something. And all i can really remember from it was the visual of slaves thrown overboard, all shackled together and the group of them weighted down. And the horror those people must have experienced. (The movie was fiction, but i assume it was depicting an actual practice.) It gave me nightmares.
Here is another clip more clips from reporters who were invited on earlier dive.
What an absolute shit show. I’m astounded that anyone willing got into that device. “We only have one button” says the CEO.
I remember that. They were somehow short on provisions and didn’t have enough food for everyone so they threw a bunch of of the slaves overboard. Horrifying.
Example from numerous media reports:
Everyone keeps talking about “96 hours” as some magical number. It’s 95 hours, they still have an hour left! Oops, now it’s 97 hours, they’re dead.
Clearly, someone guessed they had about 4 days of air. Maybe 3 days, maybe 5. It’s also clear that it was a guess to start with no actual testing, so maybe it was 2 days and maybe it’s a week. Reporting it as “96 hours” implies both a precision and an accuracy which are not in evidence.
All a moot point because they were probably dead an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, but it still irritates me.
Pretty sure that film was Amistad.