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palusbuteothis is about the Titan sub. RIP.
I am in a conflict.
Part of me feels absolutely awful about the loss of the Titan sub.
It was a no-win, Kobayashi Maru situation. No matter what was done to save them, they were all dead.
there is a part of me, a dark morbid gallows humor part of me, that's been laughing a little at the jokes and memes. But, I'm also mortified.
These people took risks and knew what they were getting into.
In that sense, this loss makes me think of the crash of the B-17 "909" a few years ago.
The foundation that was flying that bomber and taking paying customers up (something like $500 a person for 5-6 people each flight), and they were apparently not doing 100% of the required maintenance as it was getting more and more expensive, and apparently they were "relying" on the "ruggedness" of the B-17, it's claim to fame in WW2, and that they weren't being "too rough" on the aircraft (as it normally operated at 20,000 feet and usually a 12 hour long mission, whereas these flight experiences were 1,000 feet for 30 mins). But something catastrophic failed on one flight and all were killed.
I happened to go on one of these scenic flights, but on a much smaller B-25 bomber. The worst I experienced was a lot of air turbulence and engine-noise/vibration induced nausea.
When you sign up the waivers you sign make it very clear there is an inherent risk of a crash/death, and by signing that paperwork, you are made to acknowledge this, as remote a possibility it is. Although, with vintage warbirds, the risk is higher than a regular commercial jet airliner.
Either way you look at the 909 crash, it is utterly horrible and tragic, and might have been preventable or at least, delayed the failure of parts for a little while, or, stricter adherence to the regulations and inspections might have grounded flights and reduced the chance of a crash with public passengers on board.
I also think a lot about the Apollo missions and what they thought about and tried to figure out as the best methods and procedures to survive in deep space for almost 3 weeks....And survive being rocketed through the atmosphere and then sling-shotted back through it at ridiculous speeds and friction heat....and then landing in the ocean, hopefully right-side up.
But anyway
This sub and the company is very different in a lot of ways.
But the CEO has been shown now to have pushed aside regulations and basically said "fuck the rules I'm doing it anyway"
He also apparently fired an employee/consultant who had been a career Submariner who raised a number of concerns and dared to ask questions. There was apparently a major lawsuit that somehow got missed by the mainstream media.
and, with this CEO, Money Talks.
Every passenger he took down in his jerry-rigged carbon fibre tube down 2 miles underwater, was paying him $250,000.
Apparently the word "Death" appeared 3 times on the front page and on other pages of his multi-page waiver and sign up form. So, these people who threw money at him were made aware of the inherent risks.
You're literally trapped in this little sub that was only rated for 1/4 of the depth it was going down into.
You're stuck in that tube with 4 others for 8-10 hours. Your toilet consisted, apparently, of an empty soda bottle and some ziplock bags. The fucking Apollo missions had better facilities.
There was apparently NO backup systems, no emergency systems, no means of escape or rescue.
And they were dependent of Musk's Skynet satellite wifi. So, not only did the signal have to be going through the Earth's upper atmosphere, it then had to somehow penetrate down 2 miles through water. But if the mothership was apparently a few feet off, connection was lost, and it's happened a few times on other dives.
And there were of course, dozens of previous dives where "nothing" happened.
One of the things that really bothers me about the sub's "design" was that the only way in and out was through a viewport he allegedly bought "used" ("to save money"), and was only rated for a depth 1/4 that of what they were descending. And, it was bolted onto the sub with bolts, the only access was on the outside.
So even if they somehow managed to surface and was found, they would likely still have all suffocated inside, while the rescue crew would have been trying to unscrew those bolts fast enough.
While I do "understand" the reasoning for this in some measure is to prevent someone who might go into sudden panic mode trying to get out of the sub while at depth. Much like someone opening a pressurized door on an airliner at 30,000 feet altitude......It doesn't end well. And, without a parachute, if your body somehow managed to survive the sudden de-pressurization and free-falling through 30,000 feet at terminal velocity without proper training, it would not end well for you anyway.
Just before I heard about the sub being lost, I happened to watch a short vid clip on social media of a tourist group in a helicopter. The pilot was doing some sort of check while in flight, and put his hand on the Rotor Brake, and the passenger next to him suddenly reached up and grabbed the handle, for no good reason and was clearly not paying attention / not aware of what they were doing.
The pilot violently grabbed that person's hand, pulled it off the handle and yelled at them "DO NOT TOUCH THAT WILL KILL US"
Humans do really weird things when they're half paying attention to what's going on around them, or, in a deep state of panic & claustrophobia.
So when I started learning about the sub and it's "design", I thought of that clip and imagined someone on board in a panic trying to rip open the viewport and the sub instantly imploding.
....And...Turns out that Since that viewport was not rated for the depth it was going to, it apparently failed and the sub imploded or instantly de-pressurized. It was put through pressures it was not designed to withstand one too many times.
So. Learning about how the CEO doesn't have much regard for safety is one thing. If he was doing all of this himself and he killed himself "by accident", I'd have virtually no sympathy for him.
But. He willingly took other people with him and put them all at unnecessary risks. Because Money.
And because fuck the rules.
He also apparently recruited "young college graduates" without a lot of experience, because, I would not be surprised, they don't ask as many questions and don't raise a stink about dangers and risks because they're less likely to be aware of them or thinking about them.
That to me is tantamount to...murder. Or the most extreme display of negligence.
So, I have little sympathy for this guy.
His passengers, however, I feel horrible about, and, all of their families, and more so now they have to deal with The Internet savages and trolls.
I also feel awful for the crew of the company. Especially as they had to sit there, helpless and unable to do anything for the sub once it got out of signal, etc.
I don't really care these passengers were Incredibly Rich. Death is the great equalizer. And you don't fuck with Poseidon/Neptune.
In a related sense to thinking about the Apollo missions, I also think about the mission to Mars and how are they going to find the people willing to be trapped in a tube for 1-2 months. MONTHS. with no means of escape or rescue whatsoever. In outer space.
Maybe the "lesson" we all learn from this is the definition of "Risk Assessment".
Despite the CEO's "fuck the rules" attitude, I was relieved to read a quote attributed to the Coast Guard or rescue op director "There is no price on saving human life" (paraphrased).
I dunno, maybe more thoughts added later.
I am in a conflict.
Part of me feels absolutely awful about the loss of the Titan sub.
It was a no-win, Kobayashi Maru situation. No matter what was done to save them, they were all dead.
there is a part of me, a dark morbid gallows humor part of me, that's been laughing a little at the jokes and memes. But, I'm also mortified.
These people took risks and knew what they were getting into.
In that sense, this loss makes me think of the crash of the B-17 "909" a few years ago.
The foundation that was flying that bomber and taking paying customers up (something like $500 a person for 5-6 people each flight), and they were apparently not doing 100% of the required maintenance as it was getting more and more expensive, and apparently they were "relying" on the "ruggedness" of the B-17, it's claim to fame in WW2, and that they weren't being "too rough" on the aircraft (as it normally operated at 20,000 feet and usually a 12 hour long mission, whereas these flight experiences were 1,000 feet for 30 mins). But something catastrophic failed on one flight and all were killed.
I happened to go on one of these scenic flights, but on a much smaller B-25 bomber. The worst I experienced was a lot of air turbulence and engine-noise/vibration induced nausea.
When you sign up the waivers you sign make it very clear there is an inherent risk of a crash/death, and by signing that paperwork, you are made to acknowledge this, as remote a possibility it is. Although, with vintage warbirds, the risk is higher than a regular commercial jet airliner.
Either way you look at the 909 crash, it is utterly horrible and tragic, and might have been preventable or at least, delayed the failure of parts for a little while, or, stricter adherence to the regulations and inspections might have grounded flights and reduced the chance of a crash with public passengers on board.
I also think a lot about the Apollo missions and what they thought about and tried to figure out as the best methods and procedures to survive in deep space for almost 3 weeks....And survive being rocketed through the atmosphere and then sling-shotted back through it at ridiculous speeds and friction heat....and then landing in the ocean, hopefully right-side up.
But anyway
This sub and the company is very different in a lot of ways.
But the CEO has been shown now to have pushed aside regulations and basically said "fuck the rules I'm doing it anyway"
He also apparently fired an employee/consultant who had been a career Submariner who raised a number of concerns and dared to ask questions. There was apparently a major lawsuit that somehow got missed by the mainstream media.
and, with this CEO, Money Talks.
Every passenger he took down in his jerry-rigged carbon fibre tube down 2 miles underwater, was paying him $250,000.
Apparently the word "Death" appeared 3 times on the front page and on other pages of his multi-page waiver and sign up form. So, these people who threw money at him were made aware of the inherent risks.
You're literally trapped in this little sub that was only rated for 1/4 of the depth it was going down into.
You're stuck in that tube with 4 others for 8-10 hours. Your toilet consisted, apparently, of an empty soda bottle and some ziplock bags. The fucking Apollo missions had better facilities.
There was apparently NO backup systems, no emergency systems, no means of escape or rescue.
And they were dependent of Musk's Skynet satellite wifi. So, not only did the signal have to be going through the Earth's upper atmosphere, it then had to somehow penetrate down 2 miles through water. But if the mothership was apparently a few feet off, connection was lost, and it's happened a few times on other dives.
And there were of course, dozens of previous dives where "nothing" happened.
One of the things that really bothers me about the sub's "design" was that the only way in and out was through a viewport he allegedly bought "used" ("to save money"), and was only rated for a depth 1/4 that of what they were descending. And, it was bolted onto the sub with bolts, the only access was on the outside.
So even if they somehow managed to surface and was found, they would likely still have all suffocated inside, while the rescue crew would have been trying to unscrew those bolts fast enough.
While I do "understand" the reasoning for this in some measure is to prevent someone who might go into sudden panic mode trying to get out of the sub while at depth. Much like someone opening a pressurized door on an airliner at 30,000 feet altitude......It doesn't end well. And, without a parachute, if your body somehow managed to survive the sudden de-pressurization and free-falling through 30,000 feet at terminal velocity without proper training, it would not end well for you anyway.
Just before I heard about the sub being lost, I happened to watch a short vid clip on social media of a tourist group in a helicopter. The pilot was doing some sort of check while in flight, and put his hand on the Rotor Brake, and the passenger next to him suddenly reached up and grabbed the handle, for no good reason and was clearly not paying attention / not aware of what they were doing.
The pilot violently grabbed that person's hand, pulled it off the handle and yelled at them "DO NOT TOUCH THAT WILL KILL US"
Humans do really weird things when they're half paying attention to what's going on around them, or, in a deep state of panic & claustrophobia.
So when I started learning about the sub and it's "design", I thought of that clip and imagined someone on board in a panic trying to rip open the viewport and the sub instantly imploding.
....And...Turns out that Since that viewport was not rated for the depth it was going to, it apparently failed and the sub imploded or instantly de-pressurized. It was put through pressures it was not designed to withstand one too many times.
So. Learning about how the CEO doesn't have much regard for safety is one thing. If he was doing all of this himself and he killed himself "by accident", I'd have virtually no sympathy for him.
But. He willingly took other people with him and put them all at unnecessary risks. Because Money.
And because fuck the rules.
He also apparently recruited "young college graduates" without a lot of experience, because, I would not be surprised, they don't ask as many questions and don't raise a stink about dangers and risks because they're less likely to be aware of them or thinking about them.
That to me is tantamount to...murder. Or the most extreme display of negligence.
So, I have little sympathy for this guy.
His passengers, however, I feel horrible about, and, all of their families, and more so now they have to deal with The Internet savages and trolls.
I also feel awful for the crew of the company. Especially as they had to sit there, helpless and unable to do anything for the sub once it got out of signal, etc.
I don't really care these passengers were Incredibly Rich. Death is the great equalizer. And you don't fuck with Poseidon/Neptune.
In a related sense to thinking about the Apollo missions, I also think about the mission to Mars and how are they going to find the people willing to be trapped in a tube for 1-2 months. MONTHS. with no means of escape or rescue whatsoever. In outer space.
Maybe the "lesson" we all learn from this is the definition of "Risk Assessment".
Despite the CEO's "fuck the rules" attitude, I was relieved to read a quote attributed to the Coast Guard or rescue op director "There is no price on saving human life" (paraphrased).
I dunno, maybe more thoughts added later.
