Film director James Cameron has expertise in designing and testing these submersibles, and he has many criticisms of the design of the sub that imploded, and of the hubris of the CEO who ignored repeated safety warnings from the diving community. He also mentions that the sub seems to have been attempting to resurface when it imploded, suggesting that they were aware the hull was starting to fail.
If it really happened the way he says it did (implosion at 3,500 ft when they were travelling down to 13,000 ft) this sub was in no shape or form suited for this dive.
It’s not confirmed at this point as I understand and Cameron also disclosed it as a rumor in a recent interview on Youtube.
Just read about Stockton Rush’s (CEO and “pilot” of the sub, presumed dead) views about security:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_Rush
It’s just amazing how an aircraft pilot, a guy with an ivy-league degree in aerospace engineering can have such twisted ideas about standards, regulations, and security in general.
No way in hell would I have signed up for this haphazard dive.
The reports I heard said communication was lost when the sub was at a depth of 3300 meters, not feet. But yeah, carbon fiber seems like a bad choice and the thing was an implosion waiting to happen.
While obviously he intellectually knew the requirements were different, and even managed to build something that survived a few trips, I almost wonder if there is a certain amount of mental inertia there, similar to the old saw, “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” In aircraft, and even spacecraft, you do so much more to save weight than would be necessary or appropriate for designing a submarine, and your pressure vessel will never need to handle more than 1 atmosphere. Again, I’m not suggesting that he was literally stupid and didn’t understand that at some level, but I haven’t heard from anyone who’s been around subs who thinks he was on the right developmental track.
If you read the Wikipedia entry on the Titan submersible, it mentions somewhere that the original designer only intended it as a one time use vehicle. That doesn’t inspire confidence.
That is freaking insane! So they knew this wasn’t meant for repeated dives and did it anyway……
So I went back to the Wiki entry and I made a mistake - There was a footnote about a submersible built by Richard Fossett called the DeepSea Challenger that was first to use the carbon polymer design, which is what the Titan’s design was based on. Anyways, Fossett died before he could use his personal sub, Virgin Oceanic bought it and got it tested (because Richard Branson wanted to use it), but that testing determined that it could only be used once, so they never bothered to use it after that. So I guess the main lesson that Rush learned from all this is to not get the carbon polymer sub tested because that’ll just confirm it shouldn’t be used more than once.
Either way it’s nuts to think that was documented and ignored!