board77

It's crazy they don't even have a good count of how many people are on the sub!

They supposedly had a connection via Starlink, but either it failed, or there's no one left to use it.

Eta: OK, someone said this is pretty damning, and I agree. Long screenshot.

[SHOW]

20230620_091254.jpg

I don't think our spoiler tags are working any more - I tried on firefox and chrome. Can you repost?

I think it's the inline image part that's iffy. Let me try.

Eta: inline worked.

David Pogue later replied that his video did mention the sub being lost. Not sure about the internet blackout part.

The entire operation is just horrifyingly slapdash. This wasn't some wildly unpredictable accident, this was an inevitability.

"On my expedition last summer, they did indeed get lost for about 5 hours, and adding such a beacon was discussed..."

.... but they didn't actually do it? Holy swear words.

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

Can you provide a summary?

Haven't watched the whole thing yet, but it's a 10-minute clip from a US News show that did a story on this company where one of their correspondents got to see and go on the ship. After watching a couple minutes of it, I sure as hell ain't getting on that dinky looking little tube of a sub!

I very much suspect that this company will be shortly shut down, and you wouldn't get the chance even if you wanted to (and if you happened to have a spare $250,000 lying around).

But wait, it gets worse.

Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Depths It Could Safely Travel To

Quote:

Court documents reveal a former OceanGate employee had several safety complaints over the tourist submersible—and then he was fired.

"Safety concerns" like the viewport was only rated for 1,300 feet because the company wouldn't pay for the one that was rated for 4,000. You need to read the whole thing if you want to find out how far your jaw can drop.

Wow... see if I ever get on a tourist submarine ever again!

Again?

This whole thing is terrifying but also incredibly infuriating. And very sad because it seems highly doubtful at this time that they'll be rescued.

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I keep checking and rechecking the news hoping for some positive development. It’s horrible to think of being stuck in a small enclosed space for hours and hours, just waiting to die.

Given the shoddy construction and corner cutting, it's much more likely that it ended in a quick crunch.

The CEO, described as a libertarian, scoffed at safety-obsessed government regulations and was quoted as saying that at some point, safety is just an extra expense. Now his company is demanding heroic efforts from Coast Guard and the Navy, never mind that there's absolutely nothing they can do at the depth that the submersible is supposed to be. Emergency plans have to be made before the emergency.

This comparison has come up a lot in conversations.

A tale of two disasters: Missing Titanic sub captivates the world days after deadly migrant shipwreck

Quote:

A fishing boat crowded with migrants traveling from Libya to Italy sank in Greek waters last week. While hundreds are still missing and feared dead, it has garnered far less attention and resources than the Titan rescue efforts for five people

Frelga wrote: *

Wed 21 Jun , 2023 3:58 pm

Again?

When we went to Barbados in 2006, one of our excursions was in a tourist submarine. They took us about 200 feet below the surface and we got to see all kinds of sea life close up.

It was almost like an amusement park ride. You buy the tickets and at the appropriate time you go to the dock and they take you out to where the sub is, on a boat. Then all the tourists transfer to the sub ( I think there was room for about 20?) and they seal it up and submerge and go around under water for maybe half an hour with all the people peering out the ports while an employee explains things.

It might even have been this company:
https://www.barbados.atlantissubmarines.com/
But I couldn't swear to it.

Good point about the contrast between the response to the submersible and the response to the migrant ship.

This article has an interesting to-scale diagram to give you an idea of the depth (scroll down a lot).

It's now officially beyond the estimated range of life support.

They found the sub in pieces, confirming they have died.