Submersible on tours of the Titanic missing with 5 on board

[kittylady]

It just gets worse and worse. A travel writer called Arnie Weissmann has come forward to say that he was told by Stockton Rush that the Titan was constructed using carbon fibre that he'd bought from Boeing at a massive discount because it was past its safe shelf life for use in planes.  If Boeing decided it was too old and therefore unsafe to use for planes then why the hell would anyone think it was a good idea to use it in a deep dive submersible? 

Meanwhile, Boeing and the University of Washington, as well as other companies and institutions, have denied OceanGate's claims that they were partnered with the company in the design and manufacture of Titan.

[dilligaf]

Jun 23, 2023 21:04:14 GMT HWBL said:

Jun 23, 2023 20:02:30 GMT dilligaf said:

To me this is as satisfying as hearing about some millionaire sport hunter being eaten by the lion he was hunting. And in expressing my opinion via comments sections all over the internet, I have been diagnosed for free as a heartless sociopath (is there any other kind?). The memes are keeping my soul alive right now.

You're probably being called jealous, too, because you did not have the means or "courage" to be so adventurous <rolling eyes big time>.

Not yet my haters are slipping 😂😂😂 I am replying HOW COULD I SINK SO LOW?

[coppercatseye]

I mean these are the biggest Darwin Award candidates in a long time.

[no1novice]

Disbelief and anger among Greek shipwreck victims’ relatives as millions spent on Titan rescue effort
Disparity between rescue responses has sparked debate in Pakistan about double standards

Shah Meer Baloch in Islamabad and Emma Graham-Harrison
Sun 25 Jun 2023 07.00 BST
Anees Majeed, who lost five relatives in the boat that sank off Greece on 14 June, watched in disbelief and growing anger as a frantic, multimillion-dollar rescue effort played out for five other men lost at sea last week.

Like thousands of others across Pakistan, Majeed, a law student from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, grieved at funeral prayers without a body to bury. At least 350 Pakistani citizens were on the overcrowded craft, the interior minister, Rana Sanaullah, confirmed on Friday.

There is little hope Majeed’s cousins will ever be found or brought home. The family are tormented by rising evidence that European authorities knew the boat was in trouble but did not intervene.

Yet as they began their mourning, a vast operation, involving craft from several countries, was getting under way. Its target was five men, also lost in the depths of the ocean, but on a trip they had chosen as an adventure, not one they were driven to make out of desperation. Two of them were also Pakistani citizens, but from the opposite end of the social scale to Majeed’s cousins – businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

The contrast between two tragedies at sea, the scale of efforts to rescue those in danger, and the global media response to both stories has stirred debate inside Pakistan about national and international inequality, and the different values put on human lives.

“We were shocked to know that millions would be spent on this rescue mission,” Majeed said. “They used all resources, and so much news came out from this search. But they did not bother to search for hundreds of Pakistanis and other people who were on the Greek boat.

“This is a double standard … they could have saved many of the people if they wanted, or at least they could have recovered the bodies.”

“It’s not the fault of five men that hundreds of people died off Greek shores. But it is the fault of a system where the class disparities are so huge,” said one senior journalist at a major Pakistani outlet, who asked not to be named. “When people point that out, it is misunderstood as hatred.” She said local media coverage of the migrant deaths may also have been curtailed by fatigue from reporting years of death and trauma from violence and natural disasters at home.

Still, the scale of the Mediterranean tragedy was hard to grasp. With more than 300 deaths, the toll exceeded any terror attack in the country’s history, Sanaullah said.

Pakistan’s often slow-moving authorities said they had arrested 14 suspects in connection with alleged human trafficking, and the country had a day of national mourning.

[sputnik]

and with all that the greeks are going to the polls this weekend and are expected to give the current conservative government an even stronger majority. because people don't care. there's so much anti-immigrant section that even if most people won't say it out loud, they're fine with the boat sinking and with authorities continuing to do the bare minimum, or not even that, when they encounter migrant boats. just like a lot of americans are fine with letting migrants starve or drown trying to cross into the US, and/or get shot by border vigilantes.

[kittylady]

Jun 24, 2023 19:33:43 GMT coppercatseye said:

I mean these are the biggest Darwin Award candidates in a long time.

There's a certain criteria you have to meet to be considered for a Darwin Award.


Reproduction. You have to do something to remove yourself from the gene pool, either by ending up dead or sterile.

Excellence. Whatever you do to win the award needs to show a spectacular lack of common sense.

Self-selection. However you kill or sterilise yourself, it must be your own doing and not down to bad luck or the poor planning of others.

Maturity.  Anyone under the age of 16 cannot win a Darwin Award, nor can anyone with an intellectual disability that excludes them from making sound judgements.

Verification.  Urban myths won't cut it.  The story has to be capable of being fact checked.


Those on board of the Titan may qualify for an Honourable Mention but they don't meet enough of the criteria to be winners. But to make up for it, here's a cat-related Darwin Award from 2005.

(18 December 2005, South Africa) Two muggers were working a crowd. The had just taken a cellphone and purse from a couple at knifepoint, when the woman screamed. The muggers sprinted away. But working a crowd and working out are entirely different things, and one of the muggers was out of shape.


As he watched his compatriot recede into the distance, he felt the stitch in his side, and knew he could run no farther. Perhaps he was thinking he should have spent some of his ill-gotten gains on a trip to the gym. But then he spotted a high fence, and that, at least, he could manage.



He put on a burst of speed, and leapt the fence. Sure enough, no one followed. Escape! But he had failed to take into consideration a very important fact. He was at the Bloemfontein Zoo. Just as he was congratulating himself on his foolproof escape, he realized that the other side of the fence was a 10 meter drop into a cage of bored Bengal tigers!


Speaking of foolproof, the tigers wasted no time in treating the nearest fool as their own little kitty toy. The mauled body of the mugger was not noticed until noon. A zoo spokesperson said that the tigers had been fed the previous afternoon, else they would have left no evidence behind.



Police said a post mortem would be carried out to determine the exact cause of his death--as if that wasn't obvious.

Darwin Awards (2005)

[kittylady]

Human remains thought to be found in Titan sub debris


Human remains are believed to have been found within the wreckage of the Titan submersible, the US Coast Guard says.

Pieces from the sub, which imploded on a deep dive to the Titanic, were unloaded in St John's, Canada, on Wednesday.

Officials say the sub's landing frame and a rear cover were found among the debris.

US medical professionals will conduct a formal analysis of presumed remains, the coast guard said in a statement.

The agency is in the early stages of an investigation into the causes of the disaster. The Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) will transport the evidence to a US port for further analysis and testing.

MBI Chair Captain Jason Neubauer said in a statement that there is "still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again".

"I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths," Cpt Neubauer said.

All five people on board the vessel died on 18 June after it imploded about 90 minutes into a dive to view the famous 1912 shipwreck, which sits at a depth of 3,800m (12,500ft) in the north Atlantic.

The passengers were the head of OceanGate, which organised the dive, 61-year-old Stockton Rush; British explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman Dawood, 19; and French diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77.

Officials were initially sceptical about the prospect of recovering any of the bodies.

"This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the seafloor," Coast Guard Adm John Mauger said, shortly after the loss of the vessel was confirmed.

Cpt Neubauer said at the time that investigators would take "all precautions" if they discovered human remains and that the probe would likely include a formal hearing with witness testimony.

So far, the coast guard says, five major pieces of the sub have been found in a large debris field near the bow of the Titanic.

The debris brought ashore on Wednesday appeared to include at least one titanium end cap, the sub's porthole with its window missing, as well as a titanium ring, landing frame and the end equipment bay, according to BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos.

The recovery mission was led by Canadian ship Horizon Arctic, which carried a remotely operated vehicle operated by Pelagic Research Services. The company said in a statement earlier Wednesday that its team had completed off-shore operations and was returning to base.

OceanGate has been criticised for its safety practices, and former employees have raised concerns about the Titan sub, which was not subject to regulation.

In email messages seen by the BBC, Mr Rush had previously dismissed safety worries from one expert, saying he was "tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation".

Another former OceanGate employee also wrote an inspection report which identified "numerous issues that posed serious safety concerns", including how the hull had been tested.

In a statement last week, OceanGate said it was "an extremely sad time for our employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss".


BBC News

[sputnik]

my morbid ass wants to know what exactly is left after 5 people implode in a little tube at the bottom of the ocean. i want details. i'm gross and curious that way.
do they mean like shards of bone and flesh encrusted into the hull bits from the compression before it blew outward again? from what i understood of what an implosion at that depth looks like, i thought they were basically vaporised. 

[loftybike]

^^^ Maybe some teeth were found? Can't think of any material that wouldn't be indeed vaporized.

[tulip]

Jun 29, 2023 2:19:31 GMT sputnik said:

my morbid ass wants to know what exactly is left after 5 people implode in a little tube at the bottom of the ocean. i want details. i'm gross and curious that way.
do they mean like shards of bone and flesh encrusted into the hull bits from the compression before it blew outward again? from what i understood of what an implosion at that depth looks like, i thought they were basically vaporised. 

I had the same thought! I'm thinking bone shards? The wreckage they found is being analyzed for what they think is human remains -- so it can't be very large, whatever it is that they found. 

[greysfang]

It has to be bone/teeth as the aquatic life would have eaten any meat.

[kittylady]

Haunting last words from Titan submersible crew revealed

The crew aboard the submersible that imploded during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic said they were “all good” just before their deaths, it has emerged.

The revelation on Monday came on the first day of a hearing into the tragedy, during which the US Coast Guard also presented an animated re-creation of the doomed Titan’s final journey.

The inquiry heard that the vessel’s crew had been communicating with support staff aboard their mother ship, the Polar Prince, via text messages just before the implosion on June 18 last year.

Among the last words heard from the crew were “all good here”. They then lost contact after an exchange of texts about the submersible’s depth and weight.

The Titan imploded about two hours into its descent. On board were Stockton Rush, the founder of OceanGate, which built the craft, Hamish Harding, a British explorer, Paul Henri Nargeolet, a French diver, and Shahzada Dawood, a British-Pakistani businessman, along with his 19-year-old son Suleman.

The hearing is expected to last two weeks and aims to establish what caused the accident.

Since its fateful dive, the Titan has become the subject of scrutiny in the undersea exploration community, in part because of its unconventional design and its creator’s decision to forgo standard independent checks.

US Coast Guard representatives said in their initial remarks in Charleston County, South Carolina, that the Titan was left exposed to the elements while in storage for seven months in 2022 and 2023.

The hull was also never reviewed by any third parties as is standard procedure, they added.

The hearing’s first witness, Tony Nissen, OceanGate’s former engineering director, testified that the Titan was struck by lightning during a test mission in 2018, and that might have compromised its hull.

He said he was fired in 2019 after he refused to let the submersible go down to the Titanic and told Mr Rush it was “not working like we thought it would.”

Mr Nissen said the submersible later went through other tests and adjustments before its subsequent dives to the Titanic.

However, when he was asked to pilot it he replied: “I’m not getting in it,” he told the hearing.

Mr Nissen said Mr Rush could be difficult to work for and was often very concerned with costs and project schedules, among other issues.

He said the businessman would fight for what he wanted, which often changed day-to-day. Mr Nissen added that he tried to keep his clashes with Mr Rush behind closed doors so that others in the company would not be aware.

“Most people would eventually just back down to Stockton,” he added.

When the Titan failed to resurface as scheduled, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometres) south of St John’s, Newfoundland.

The search for the submersible attracted worldwide attention – as hopes faded that those on board would be found alive.

Wreckage from the Titan was subsequently discovered on the ocean floor about 300 meters (330 yards) off the bow of the Titanic.

The ongoing Marine Board of Investigation (MIB) inquiry is the highest level of probe conducted by the US Coast Guard.

After the hearing concludes, recommendations will be submitted to the US Coast Guard’s commandant, while the US’s National Transportation Safety Board is also conducting an investigation.

Jason Neubauer, of the US Coast Guard Office of Investigations and who led Monday’s hearing, said: “There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this tragic incident.

“But we hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy and prevent anything like this from happening again.”

However, some key OceanGate figures are not scheduled to testify. They include Mr Rush’s widow, Wendy Rush, who was the company’s communications director.

Melissa Leake, a spokesman for the US Coast Guard, said it did not comment on why specific people were not called to particular hearings during ongoing investigations.

She added that was common for an MIB to “hold multiple hearing sessions or conduct additional witness depositions for complex cases.”

Among those scheduled to appear later in the hearing include Guillermo Sohnlein, OceanGate’s co-founder, David Lochridge, a former operations director at the firm, and Steven Ross, its former scientific director.

Numerous US Coast Guard officials and scientists, along with government and industry officials, are also expected to testify.


The Telegraph via MSN

[MsDark]

I can't stop thinking about that poor kid who didn't want to go.

I remember him being 17. Though this article says 19. Doesn't really matter.