Coast Guard Finds Titan Sub Disaster Preventable
CEO Stockton Rush: "If anything happens, I want it to impact me.”
I recently wrote about the Titan Sub disaster as emblematic of the extraordinary hubris of men who grossly overestimate their intelligence and understanding.
In the case of OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush, hubris was apparently combined with psychopathic recklessness.
The Coast Guard just issued a report finding that the Titan Sub disaster was preventable—an obvious fact to anyone who has followed the story, given that the sub’s hull was made out of carbon fiber.
On a personal note, I have been familiar with the properties of carbon fiber since 1991, when I bought my first carbon fiber windsurfing mast made by FiberSpar. The company—founded in 1986 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—was a pioneer in using carbon fiber for sporting equipment.
As anyone who has ever used carbon fiber windsurfing masts knows, the material is extremely strong, but it inevitably fatigues with micro fissures and ultimately fails. It is also unsuitable for being subjected to crushing force. I was therefore astonished to hear that Stockton Rush had made his deep sea submersible out of carbon fiber.
One interesting detail was Rush’s statement that he always wanted to go down in the sub with his customers because “If anything happens, I want it to impact me.”
I think it’s noteworthy that he used the silly metaphor “impact.” As a self-proclaimed man of science, he should have said:
If anything happens, I want it to instantly crush me into jelly when the carbon fiber hull fails and subjects my skull and body to 380 atmospheres or 5,600 pounds per square inch of pressure.
Those interested in the literature of maritime disasters will find the Coast Guard report interesting. Click on link below to read it.
The brain requires tens to hundreds of milliseconds to process sensory input. An implosion at that depth would have occurred in less than 1 millisecond, meaning the occupants likely never felt or realized any impact.
The passengers obviously were conned. Those stats of over 5K pounds per square inch are hard to envision in terms of the effect on the human body and the time frame, I guess instant. What a bloody tragedy for those innocents. Were they foolish?