2y ago

AP News: A search is underway for missing submarine that takes people to see Titanic

apnews.com Deep-sea craft carrying 5 people to Titanic wreckage reported missing, search underway

A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic. Canadian officials say the five-person submersible was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland. The search is being led by the U.S. Coast Guard. The owner o...

United States | News & Politics @lemmy.ml

apnews.com /article/titanic-wreckage-missing-submersible-62fadef7a55af0022e3dc75df862a5c1

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I find it strangely hard to care about the fate of a handful of multimillionaire tourists when hundreds of refugees died last week due to the indifference of the Greek authorities - and the media barely noticed.

What I dont get is that one of the passengers was a billionaire. He could have built himself the fanciest and safest vessel for a few Million Dollars with a whole naval operation attached. Of course thats a lot more than 250K but still nothing for a billionaire. These people are so out of touch and cheap its insane.
- It goes to prove that billionaires are just as gullible as the rest of the people, all they had was just money and assets, it doesn't grant them wisdom or intelligence.
  
  That much money must give you incredible hubris: up until this point you’ve never had a problem that money couldn’t fix (or ease) for you.
  Unfortunately, you can’t bribe physics.
- Why do that when you can cut costs, and how would it be possible for them not to ensure their safety? I don't think they cut costs like the clients, I don't think they would put lites at risk just for the sake of some extra dollars to the pocket of the CEO. /s

Even if I had a stupid amount of money, there's no way in hell I would pay someone to stuff me inside what seems to be an over-sized propane tank, then send me to depths where the water pressure is so extreme it will literally crush you.
Just...no.
- I particularly like the part where this specific submersible can't ever be opened from the inside, because it gets bolted shut from outside.

CBS dude rode on it and did an interview with the owner.
So many red flags.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29co_Hksk6o&feature=youtu.be
- Built with shit from Home Depot, controlled with a literal Logitech game controller, construction pipes as ballast... holy fuck, why would anybody agree to go 3.7km below the surface of the ocean in that deathtrap?
  
  Imagine paying $250k and the pilot pulls out the player 2 controller
- Wow, that is super sketchy. Now I am not at all surprised this happened. Hope that company has a shit ton of insurance.
  
  There was a conspiracy that the original titanic going down was an insurance scam.

Here's a thread giving info on all the shoddiness of that sub
- https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-faced-lawsuit-depths-safely-travel-oceangate
  This adds to the picture of utter recklessness.
  At the meeting Lochridge discovered why he had been denied access to the viewport information from the Engineering department—the viewport at the forward of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate intended to take passengers down to depths of 4,000 meters. Lochridge learned that the viewport manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to experimental design of the viewport supplied by OceanGate, which was out of the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy (“PVHO”) standards. OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters.
  
  So they wanted to die. Got it.

Very wealthy people wasting a huge amount of society's resources to have mild fun doing something very risky then having to get rescued on the back of society at a high cost. I say let's enjoy watching them die.
- this is a very weird first comment to make and the subsequent comments neither look productive nor particularly on topic. let's save the thirsting for rich people blood for a topic where it's more warranted folks, please and thanks.
  
  But rich blood being spilled is the topic. They took a huge risk only to get more resources deployed to find them.
- Regardless of one's opinion the super rich, the thing also has crew that are just there because they're paid to operate the thing, I doubt they make enough to buy tickets for this kind of thing themselves.

Who even has the vessels that can go deep enough to rescue them? This is the stuff of nightmares
- Gabe Newell, yes the owner of Valve/Steam, has an ocean research organization that owns a submarine designed to dive down to 10km, to some of the deepest parts of the ocean.

I hope there’s some kind of black box… what would be worse than it happenning again one day because we don’t know what happenned.
- It's controlled with a knockoff Xbox controller. I'll bet the "black box" is a cassette recorder bought from Goodwill for $3 and then spray painted black
- BBC said that this sub (Titan) was damaged last year, and this was its first dive since being “repaired.”
  I’m betting it didn’t have a black box, and we’ll never know if the “repair” was the cause.
  
  Why do you put a 19yo in an untested death trap like this…

...officials are working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of 6,000 meters (about 20,000 feet) to the site as soon as possible.
The 5-person submersible, named Titan, is capable of diving 4,000 meters or 13,120 ft. “with a comfortable safety margin,” OceanGate said in its filing with the court.
but...after looking up on Wikipedia
...a wreck that lies over 12,000 feet (3,700 m) below the surface...
- I think they’re advertising the depth limit of the recovery vehicle, not claiming that the wreck is actually at 20,000 feet.
  
  They probably need quite a bit of margin too if the craft accidentally got lost in a deeper area

It has 96 hours of life support, I have faith.
- I am hopeful, but not necessarily optimistic...if it lost power and descended below crush depth, no amount of life support is bringing them back.
  
  Someone else in the other thread about this said they have magnetically attached ballasts that can be jettisoned so the sub floats if power is lost.
  It's also designed to go down to the floor where the Titanic is. Was it also passing over deeper water? I'dve assumed they'd release it from a boat above the titantic fairly directly.

According to the article there is a metal eating bacteria that’s eating the titanic? And it the wreckage might be gone in a few decades?
That’s incredible
- Now they probably have a new submersible to munch on...

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