OceanGate CEO Bragged About Using Expired Carbon Fiber to Build Doomed Sub

Initially, I thought Stockton Rush couldn't be a total moron because he had a degree in aerospace engineering from Princeton, but having followed the college admissions scandal, we know what those degrees are actually worth. Crap.

The 5th guy worked for the company that owned the salvage rights to the Titanic, was a professional diver, and was considered an expert on the Titanic, and he'd been on a lot of dives before to recover artifacts and map the wreck.

He more than anyone should have known this was the crappiest sub he'd ever been on, but he was seemingly obsessed. I can imagine he was invited and didn't pay for a slot.

Fiber composites are complex. Carbon fibers can be made to withstand compressive loads in that you make composites with the CF and other materials. Even so carbon fibers are about half as strong in compression as tension. Even so, carbon fiber might have a specific strength of around 3000 kN-m/kg, steels might be around 63 kN-m/kg. So it's not as simple as "carbon fiber isn't as good in compression as tension, never use it in compression." A lot of current research in aerospace is to produce better manufacturing methods and resins for carbon fibers to phase out aluminum and steel parts. Mostly in tension yes, but compression too, all parts without preloading generally are some degree in compression during their stress lives.

Should he have bought expired carbon fiber for a submarine? No. Is carbon fiber completely absurd in submarine usage? I don't imagine so. Though steel is plenty fine for a submarine, normally the hard part is the sinking by design, not the floating, so weight savings aren't super important.

First, he was an aerospace guy and several things he's said make me think he was sort of chauvinistic about deep sea exploration in general, stuff like "It’s perfectly fine. Having all these certifications for airplanes is one thing, but the carbon fiber was perfectly sound."

Second, his business model, taking four people down with him in something other than Cameronesque claustrophia, and doing so without the cost of owning a proper launch vessel, instead renting any ship that could hold and then monitor his launch sled, meant it was critical he make something big and light, by deep sea submersible standards, that was at least nominally expected to handle the load. Shit, I guess in some sense, he did, since it went down and back two or three times or whatever. At the absolute best, though, he'd invented a disposable sub, and he clearly didn't worry about that limitation any more than the rest.

That's putting it harshly.

Would be interesting so see a statistic on deep water sub excursions versus fatalities. Probably somewhere between astronauts and WWII bomber crews.

There is little regulation for deep sea subs since they operate in international waters out of jurisdiction. You can pretty much do whatever the hell you want out there. If someone manufactures within jurisdiction, regulations may apply. Though they would be easy to circumvent.

Definitely good safety and engineering practice is written in blood, but regulations are not always enforceable.

And that they convinced multiple billionaires, who are presumably educated enough to know better, to step aboard their blatantly-unseaworthy deathtrap.

This does a lot to dispel the notion that billionaires are smarter than everyone else.

Stress fatigue and fractures doesn't show itself after one dive without completely tearing down the craft and inspecting components - and this was probably the deepest dive they've been on.

pressure increases on a log scale the deeper you go, so you need to account for that, evidently, they did not account for it, and they also failed to understand requirements for regular teardowns and inspections of prototypes.

Honestly I don't find it surprising at all.

There are multiple times where people have died due to fractures as a stress fatigue in different areas.

I remember a story about the crash of United Airlines flight 232, in where a DC-10 suffering an undetected stress fracture after many flights finally broke an engine to the point of it severing out all hydraulic lines to the control surfaces - they had to try and land the plane via throttle. It's actually a very interesting story if you want to look it up - they even made a movie for it.

The issue here is the number of dives it took before something failed catastrophicly - you usually engineer it to withstand the stress for X number of dives - 6 dives are far too few and and it is indicative of poor design and poor maintenance. - compare UA232 where it only happened after multiple years and 200+flights before it finally failed catastrophicly.

Problem: exists for decades and has not been solved by experts with tons of funding in all that time.

Redditor with zero knowledge or context: Why don't they just do X, Y, Z? It's so easy 😏

It's worse than that. They're narcissistic and think they have the answer to every problem. I worked for a boss like this who had Aspergers syndrome (undiagnosed, but clear case)

He literally had bumper stickers made up with "[his name] is the answer" - he wasn't joking. If there ever was a problem he would immediately solve the problem in his mind, and that was the way we MUST do it. He would not accept rationalization as to why that might be a bad idea. I learned real fast not to tell him we had a problem.... until I already had a proposal, who was involved, and costs involved to fix the problem before he had a chance to solve the problem himself.

especially on the orange site.

Hacker News can be so engaging, but then you go to the comments and it's so enraging.

I'm surprised this isn't a named sort of cognitive bias. I think there's a related thing where we humans tend to cite external causes outside our control when we are unfortunate or make mistakes, and we tend to cite our own virtues when we are fortunate and successful.

He was trying to bet others lives too- offering greatly discounted rates for a trip and outright lying about the safety to try and convince others.

The CEO fired the employee who warned him that the sub was unsafe and needed more stringent testing.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submarine-oceangate-hull-safety-lawsuit/

Both. The drive to be a cheap pos caused him to believe he knew more than he did.

It's one thing if he died alone and another when he took other 4 people with him. I would still chalk it up to greedy asshole, because he cheap out things that would've saved the four people.

The word is arrogant.

A greedy asshole who thought himself a genius?

The fact he started charging after several warnings from Industry players does raise the asshole angle

I guess society needs people like him that make crazy things. Science itself is pretty much like this, trying out stuff and be creative. People often made inventions while other people were telling them that it would be impossible to do so.

However, I think where he actually behaved really like an asshole was taking people with him who he made believe to be in a safe vessel. He could have made a disclaimer saying something like "this is an experimental vessel, I'm not sure if it will hold up and people have warned me. I still want to take the risk and you can come, too, if you are willing to take the same risk."

You can't get sued by your customers if you're dead *taps head

"If we make the sub less safe that will be better" -Rush Stockton (paraphrased)

my brother in christ safety IS advancement. the safer the sub the deeper it can go (kinda), which could allow room to introduce other things into the sub like a fancier cabin.

I'm beginning to suspect this Stockton man had a case of amooth brain...

Not with that attitude.

Actually CF road bikes only have a safe lifespan of about 10 years - https://icancycling.com/blogs/articles/lifespan-of-road-bike-frame

insert yo mama joke here

Different loads, different failures, but still a valid safety concern.

I would not want my bike frame or fork to be made with expired resin. But the age of the bike after the CF is cured is a different matter.

Different loads, different failures, but still a valid safety concern.

I would not want my bike frame or fork to be made with expired resin. But the age of the bike after the CF is cured is a different matter.

I agree with all of that. My intuition is that prior to curing, the polymers are less stable and may change in unpredictable ways depending on subtleties in the storage environment and handling. After curing, the polymers are much more stable and durable.

Metals definitely are more forgiving, and we have better tools for testing, especially non-destructive testing. Whether the CF flaws are due to fatigue or workmanship, it's easy to miss them in inspection.

I'm also curious what the sub designers saw as the advantage of CF for this application. Is light weight really all that advantageous for a submersible? Generally no one chooses CF if they are prioritizing cost.

Yeah but your life would be hell if anything went wrong because the man really makes himself look negligent by bragging about the corners he cut.

Googling for "titan sub construction" and you can see pictures of it under construction, where the interior is clearly significantly smaller than the exterior, and there's visible open space past an inner shell.

I hear you. The best I can do is tell myself that hopefully the Coast Guard personnel and other mariners got some practice/training which will be useful in emergencies in the future. And it's still right to try and save someone, even if they put themselves in the dangerous situation.

Actually, money could have been saved... here's why:

1. The US Navy's submarine detection network heard a "boom" on the day of the implosion, which they kept close to their chests...
2. Sounded the alarm, they spent money and resources looking for something they were almost sure was lost...
3. After the expiration of time when the submarine "could be recoverable" was when they said "well... we did heard something the other day"...

Imagine the other possible scenario where the say on the first day "Hey, the sub imploded, we heard it on our underwater microphones, we won't spend money looking for these people..."
And then a future investigation reveals that they got stuck somewhere or lost power but were "buoyant" for 48 hours or so, and died for lack of oxygen when no one was looking for them.

Can you imagine the lawsuits?

I doubt it was much of an added expense. The search was carried out by Coast Guard and Navy personnel, who would be getting paid regardless.

If the sub hadn't gone missing, it's quite likely their time and resources would have been spent on practicing some sort of rescue mission.

How would they even stop people from doing something like this in international waters with willing participants?

Everyone warned the CEO, but it seems the CEO did everything he could to cover that up and mislead the passengers.

Also the 19 year old was apparently pressured into going despite his fears by his dad.

I mean, it's insanely easy to avoid being crushed at the bottom of the ocean in a homemade discount sub that everyone has tried to warn you is unsafe

Tell me about it! I've been able to avoid it for 30 years, and I haven't even really been trying that hard!

I mean things like the travelling funnfair are still a thing, people die on travelling carnival rides every year...similar thing, thrill seeking dangerous shit

Lol, this reminds me of a "scandal" in the Skyrim mod community called GateGate.

BillionaireImplosionParty?

I guess they did not think it through then, that may be one of the most dangerously dumb statements I've heard.

Fuck the CEO, the worst part is the billionaire who took his 19yo son with him.