How Titan was Built, Lost and Found: An Analysis

Funny how oceangate's stated goal was for science, yet they ignored every piece of scientific and engineering advice from everyone more qualified than rush

A couple of potentially key aspects that weren't mentioned in this video: A - The viewport was only rated for EDIT: 1300m. That's 1/3 of the depth to the Titanic. That was a flagrant, known danger point. Russian roulette on every dive with a negative safety margin. B - The engineering spec for the carbon fiber thickness was 7". They built it to 5". C - Preface: I used to work at Boeing on the 787 program, both post-cure and pre-cure. The 787 is mostly made of carbon fiber. Pre-cure was basically a low-level clean room. Not an open warehouse where people were at working areas with loafers and polo shirts. Every single large co-cured part underwent ultrasonic inspection and any defects fixed, and checked again for verification. The submersible did not get any testing for voids, inclusions, nor delamination after it was built. Any small one of those SIGNIFICANTLY weakens a co-cured composite structure by a significant amount. For them claiming to be primarily interested in scientific pursuits, they intentionally disregarded science, engineering, and safety standards, then claimed they got in the way of innovation. I'm fine with innovation, but when innovating, you put no lives or only put your life on the line...... not putting several uninformed lives on the line. In my opinion, the passenger's deaths are akin to homicide. Rules were intentionally disregarded, then lives knowingly put in significant danger. Edit: I'm in no way meaning to imply the video missed points intentionally. The stream of information about the disaster comes and goes, and I'm certain there was no ill intent, intentional misinformation, nor deliberate skipping of information.

Can’t speak for the weapons system aboard USS Colorado, but as a former submariner, there is a very big difference between the Titan being completely controlled by a game controller, and a game controller literally only controlling the periscope. Not to mention that the control surfaces (at least on board a 688i) have several redundancies and other places they can be controlled even if the ships control panel is damaged.

The only open question I have about Titan is where the incompetence stopped and the willful negligence began.

At the end of the day, it appears this incident was caused by no small amount of hubris and carelessness by OceanGate. Untested construction techniques, ignoring safety regulations and dismissing safety concerns. Simplicity and "risk taking" is something for consumer technology, not when human lives are at risk when visiting one of the most extreme environments on Earth.

James Cameron was basically right. Cut corners. Ignored warnings. Needless catastrophe waiting to happen…. Right next to the Titanic. Like modern day Shakespeare.

I know that their deaths are said to have been instantaneous and painless, but right before it, the fact that they had the time to try some methods of resurfacing means that they had at least some seconds that they knew that something was wrong... and that's a horrifying feeling to imagine.

As a complete layman it seems to me the acoustic warning system that drops the weights if the pressure vessel makes telltale noises of impending breakup was worthless because once you hear those noises you have seconds to react, and the ship can't change its depth significantly in seconds. It took hours for it to free fall to the target depth of ~12000 feet. Lets say the cracking noises happened at 10000 feet, they took action and dropped the weights, but then the momentum of the ship still continued downward for a second, then slowed to a stop, then reversed to begin accelerating upward, and all that action took say 5 to 10 seconds before the ship attained any significant upward speed. It may have managed to reduce its depth by a couple hundred feet before BOOM, it imploded at say 9800 feet, which was not enough pressure reduction in time to save them. Like the Titanic was unable to make enough course correction in the time it had to react to the sighting of the iceberg.

It's commendable you defended the OceanGate project, both its design, and its reason for existence - science. But I'd dispute that, as a scientist who has been professionally involved in studying and mapping the seabed, and I've made digital photogrammetric 3-D imagery. There isn't any science that this submerisible could do that couldn't be done as well, or better, by remote vehicles mapping the Titanic in detail. Which has already been done and which you pointed out. In fact the Titanic has now been mapped in incredible detail. Taking with them a man and his young son, both of whom had no scientific background, or reason to be there (apart from sightseeing) does not suggest any genuine science. Ok perhaps we could justify their presence by saying the company needed paying customers (with a high ticket price) to fund the project. But if doing genuine science, skip the need to make the vessel big enough for fee-paying passengers, and just build a smaller one (to take only genuine scientists), made from titanium as a sphere - as you showed in your excellent breakdown of Alvin. Finally, if this was all about science, why did Stockton Rush do the exact opposite of that? i.e. ignored the science that showed what materials you could and couldn't build with, ignored the necessary certification (which all genuine scientists would adhere to), and ignored what other experienced experts were telling him. It smacks at best of massive overconfidence in his own abilities, at worst of extreme arrogance.

Now this is how a video about the Titan incident should be done. Thank you for remaining respectful.

Very informative video, Mike. Although Ocean Gate existed supposedly for science, Rush was still criminally negligent in many areas involving the Titan. He, obviously, had faith in his design but had definitely not reached the point where the Titan had been confirmed safe for others to join the dives.

The number of people defending the CEO is astounding to me. As I recall he basically went on TV and said “I’m gonna ignore all safety procedures because they stifle development and increase cost and complexity.” Why anyone would defend a guy like this is absolutely beyond me. It’s entirely possible to be innovative while still following basic safety protocols.

EDIT JUNE 26: Hijacking this top comment to answer to claims that I am being an OceanGate "apologist". I'm sorry if my intention wasn't clear on this video; I am in no way affiliated with the organisation nor commenting on whether it was right or wrong to use this submersible. I only mentioned OceanGate's MISSION STATEMENT and pointing out that, at their core, OceanGate is an organisation with a scientific purpose with many operations not just related to Titanic dives. For Titanic specifically their science missions did the following; - Film Titanic in high definition from many angles to track deterioration and try to capture, on camera and in high definition, undersea organisms - Take water samples and use DNA analysis to identify organisms and try to match this with the footage taken from that specific dive Whether this is correct scientific method is beyond me; I just wanted to point out that OceanGate, the entire company, is not a sightseeing organisation as a whole based the above information. What is clear is that their business model then relied on public backers to keep these missions going and that those backers were given the opportunity to join the dives as assistants. Whether this is a pure "tourist" operation is open to interpretation by the viewer - I think it is a part of the business model but not the entire thing. I have not made any comment on whether the methodology or design doctrine was right or wrong - I have merely outlined what that design doctrine was. A CORRECTION: In referring to Titan’s wall thickness I mentioned 7” when I actually meant to say 5”, 127mm. Apologies for this misspeak! ANOTHER CORRECTION: Some of you have pointed out that my De Havilland Comet metaphor is based on outdated information. Thanks for this and I will read more into it, but suffice it to say the original point still stands - that a spherical structure or a round structure does a better job at distributing stresses evenly throughout the structure.

The Titan was built by people who thought they knew better, Lost by people who thought they knew better, and found by people who knew better.

My father was a sonar tech in the navy during the Cold War and he used to tell me that the things he’d hear in the ocean would probably freak a lot of people out. Really freaky stuff down there.

Small correction about the comet, it didn't exploded because of the square windows, it didn't had square windows, they were rounded on the corners, the real reason was metal fatigue on the suboptimal aluminum alloy it was used, it wasn't good enough to withstand the pressure on the new altitudes it was supposed to go, also the rivets left microscopic cracks that eventually made the structure to be torn apart, and unlike modern aircraft, instead of tearing apart the skin and keep flying, it just couldn't hold on the structure and the plane broke apart almost instantly.

For a company doing “scientific research” as you claim, they didn’t seem to follow any scientific method to design their deathtrap submarine.

I was on a submarine for a few years and this is one of the craziest stories I’ve ever heard. He was basically submerging an RV. Absolutely bonkers.

The material choice of carbon fibre over a proven metal pressure vessel baffles me. Everything I'm learning about this disaster just makes me wonder how Titan was ever meant to reach the depths of Titanic without risking failure

“I looked at the commercial opportunities and really settled on the early big opportunity being high end adventure tourism, mostly to the Titanic”. Stockton Rush, direct quote. This was a tourist operation, you have to terminally deluded to think it wasn’t. I will attribute that delusion to the evident sycophancy you have for your hero that died in this misadventure.