New evidence strongly suggests that OceanGate’s submersible, which imploded and killed all passengers on its way to the Titanic wreck, was unfit for the journey. The CEO, Stockton Rush, bought discounted carbon fiber past its shelf life from Boeing, which experts say is a terrible choice for a deep-sea vessel. This likely played a role in the submersible’s tragic demise.
I hear more and more about this every day, about some design flaw. Didn’t they think it through? I may be dumb but even I would nope out if the sub was unable to complete any of its test runs successfully.
The worst part is that the CEO who knew the sub was a disaster went with them down there
Fuck the CEO, the worst part is the billionaire who took his 19yo son with him.
The interesting thing is he really seemed to believe he knows better than all the experts.
There are reasons why ships and planes are all highly regulated. Its called physics.
I’m so conflicted on this. On the one hand he seems like a giant asshole that saves on safety to make a few more bucks but on the other hand he trusted his system completely and died with it. So not really greedy asshole but stupid entrepreneur who didn’t realize how wrong he was?
Both. The drive to be a cheap pos caused him to believe he knew more than he did.
Isn’t that pretty much what their waiver form said? That it was an experimental vessel, that it wasn’t certified by any agency, that passengers were joining the trip at their own risk, and that risks included the risk of death?
I think most billionaires have a bit of their brain set to believe in themselves rather more than is warranted. It’s great for making money, but maybe not something you want to put your life on the line over.
I think it scratches a similar itch as most techbros: “if I can solve this hard problem, all problems are easy!” It’s a mentality I see constantly, especially on the orange site.
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 😏
I like asking the “why don’t they…” question as a genuine question because it’s a great way to learn a lot in a short time
the screen was mounted by screws into the carbon fiber. fuckin’ what!?
It wasn’t. The sub had an interior fiberglass hull as insulation. The screens and lights were mounted in the fiberglass, not on the carbon fiber hull.
What do we call this scandal? It happened in the Atlantic ocean, and scandals are usually named -gate…
How about AtlanticGate? Nah, too many syllables.
OceanGateGate
Lol, this reminds me of a “scandal” in the Skyrim mod community called GateGate.
It’s a reference to this sketch in case you are one of the lucky ten thousand today.
That guy was a backyard inventor and charlatan, like those 19th century backyard aircraft inventors. It’s one thing to take yourself out of the gene pool through your own recklessness, it’s another to take others with you.
Rush bypassed over a hundred years of engineering lessons learned the hard way with the rationale it stifles innovation. He even fired and sued one of his own employees for calling him out on it. The sub had zero certifications and then he lied to customers about it saying his designs were approved by NASA and Boeing who never even heard of the guy.
Aside from the lack of safety engineering and lack of proper fail-safes in his design, there’s a reason engineers don’t use carbon fiber composites in subs. They have a tendency to delaminate. When used in aircraft, composites have to be examined and certified at a regular service interval with special inspection equipment.
I think that sub was an accident waiting to happen from day one. The hull probably failed due to inspection negligence and a failure to detect delamination. That’s even if the hull could have been rated properly for 4km. If it wasn’t the hull, it would been one of the other jury-rigged systems.
I can’t believe people smart enough to acquire the wealth for that excursion weren’t smart enough to check out the qualifications of the company hosting it. I think it was plainly obvious just looking at the sub yourself. A navigation system that consists of a consumer laptop PC and Logitech gaming controller should have been a dead giveaway.
Being smart is a strict non-requirement for acquireing wealth. You really don’t need to be smart to get wealthy. You need to be unscrupulous enough to rip off others. You need to be happy to gamble a lot of money on risky ventures and you need to be lucky enough that the risky ventures work out and don’t blow up.
And inheriting lots of money and connections usually helps as well.
Incidentally, this seems to fit the bill for someone who’d pay a quarter million to poop in front of 4 people on the way to an assisted suicide where in the best case you can watch a video feed of the Titanic.
