this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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For those who are unaware: A couple billionaires, a pilot, and one of the billionaires' son are currently stuck inside an extremely tiny sub a couple thousand meters under the sea (inside of the sub with the guys above).

They were supposed to dive down to the titanic, but lost connection about halfway down. They've been missing for the past 48 hours, and have 2 days until the oxygen in the sub runs out. Do you think they'll make it?

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[–] ProcurementCat@feddit.de 41 points 1 year ago (6 children)

It's interesting how just 6 days ago, a boat with 750 people on board, including 100 kids, capsized near Greece, only 104 survived, and it's less of an issue than those billionaires

[–] Gxost@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I think it's because the story about a missing submersible is unusual, and moreover, it's about a rescue attempt. This makes it more interesting than many other, albeit more dreadful, news stories.

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[–] Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The Greece tragedy is lacking the irony and hubris of this.

I mean, it's a tourist submersible that was aiming to bring billionaires to view the Titanic wreckage and it likely got wrecked itself. And they named the submersible Titan.

The sub's company OceanGate was dinged by a former employee for all sorts of safety issues and they fired and sued him. There are also lots of choice quotes from the CEO (who happens to be on the vessel) about moving fast and breaking things, and regulations stifling innovation. So there's some possible karma involved.

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[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I don't disagree, but missing sub is an unusual phenomenon and mystery that gets people interested.

I don't think the billionaires part is all that important, I didn't know about it until today. The Kursk, the kids trapped in a cave, the miners that have spent months in a mine, those were all news too.

But yea immigrants from war-torn regions - nobody cares unless they have "blond hair and blue eyes".

[–] Airazz@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

People tend to care more about the stuff that happens closer to them, or is somehow related to them. You probably don't care all that much about the armed conflict in Mali between the government, ISIS and Wagner Group.

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[–] Almostarctic@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The 5 submariners chances of being rescued are very slim at this point but much much higher than the 500 migrants still missing off the coast of Greece who took to the waters not for a joy ride but to escape war and seek a better life.

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[–] stewsters@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I suspect they imploded.

These super deep subs are traditionally not reused very long, because the stress of the water pressing and then releasing weakens them. The more compression-decompression cycles they take the faster they degrade.

From all the reports, they got a lot of reports of issues that they ignored. I read that one of the reporters who saw it found it to be very jury rigged together. Apparently it was not certified in any way.

Even if they did survive and the ballast worked correctly, they would surface quickly (decompression sickness?) and cannot open the hatch from the inside. The thing doesn't float above the water, so its going to be a pain to find. Also they didn't paint it bright orange with blinking lights, its white, gray, and blue.

Overall, a lot of poor decisions and ignoring advice lead to disaster.

[–] RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Even if they did survive and the ballast worked correctly, they would surface quickly (decompression sickness?)

Decompression sickness is a concern only if they suffered compression. But the main problem, as I see it, is that the sub was made from materials that are famously brittle and tend to degrade over many cycles of pressure and release (resin, carbon fiber, etc). So the likely failure mode is catastrophic failure of the sub under pressure.

There's a reason most deep sea stuff is made out of steel: it's somewhat ductile and recovers from compression with minimal change in properties.

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[–] bemenaker@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (15 children)
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[–] Blue@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Just imagine, these idiots spend 250k to sit in a iron tube controlled by a cheap offbrand playstation controller but won't spend any of their money to improve the world. Only satisfying their own ego and greed. I can't feel sorry for them, best I can do is hope that they imploded so they didn't have to suffer too long.

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[–] GONADS125@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Seeing the construction of the submersible, I would not have ridden it... As soon as the inventer said "I got these from, uh, camper world.." I would be scurrying the hell out of that thing...

Apparently the acrylic viewing window was not rated for that depth, and the body of the submersible is constructed from carbon fiber... That whole rig seems sketchy as hell to me...

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[–] hydra@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Sadly I don't think so. This incident was absolutely preventable. Someone warned them about this and they got fired. A makeshift vessel that wasn't inspected/certified, immersed to almost 3 times the rated depth, controlled by a wireless Logitech gamepad from 2010 with no redundancy and only 96 hours of oxygen. I really really hope for a last minute miracle though...

[–] Faresh@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I'm a bit confused that this is receiving so much attention. What's so special about this case compared to all the other cases of people being lost at sea every year, besides them being rich?

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Honestly, this case is somewhat extraordinary, in a deeply disturbing way.

First there was this amazing quote from the CEO who is missing on the craft right now

"You know, at some point, safety is just pure waste," Rush told CBS' David Pogue during an episode of his "Unsung Science" podcast. "I mean, if you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed, don't get in your car, don't do anything. At some point, you're going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question."

Second, aside from being made from questionable experimental materials, the sub was being controlled by an old, off brand xbox controller. There were numerous design and safety issues that were known at the time of departure. They kinda just did whatever in the F they wanted to. It's a millionaire game of Fuck Around and Find Out and they're not used to finding out.

Third, the damage waiver

The disclaimer, read out by CBS correspondent David Pogue, read: “This experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death.”

A nervous-looking Pogue makes a face and says, “Where do I sign?” in the footage recorded when he went on the $250,000 (£195,000) trip to see the Titanic at the end of last year.

I get that it's just some rich idiots (and one of their kids) crossing the river styx, but it's not very often you see such amazing disregard for basic safety.

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[–] djay1991@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] quantum_mechanic@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (11 children)

No, nor do I think they should be. There will be millions of wasted taxpayer dollars wasted on trying to recover rich people's dead bodies. They signed a waiver and knew what they were getting into. There's nothing to be learned from whatever happened, since the company was clearly negligent. Let them rest on the ocean floor beside the other rich assholes.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (7 children)

That's a bit harsh. If there's anything that works in modern society pretty reliably regardless of status, it's search and rescue. Sunk subs can also be an environmental hazard.

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[–] SporkBomber@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At least this method of winning the darwin award is going full circle.

'Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12215003/OceanGate-REFUSED-independent-inspection-missing-sub-fired-worker-raised-safety-concerns.html

He hired a guy specifically to work on the safety of the sub and fired him when he raised too many concerns like the viewport not being rated for that depth.

'Lochridge learned that the viewport manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to the experimental design of the viewport supplied by OceanGate, which was out of the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy ('PVHO') standards.

'OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters.

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[–] T156@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think that this is the right question for this community, but I'm not optimistic on their rescue.

Even under ideal conditions, the ocean is enormous, and even with all things going well, finding a properly-equipped submarine that wants to be found, can be a bit like a needle in a haystack, at least according to people with more naval experience than I.

I hope that they would be rescued, since suffocating to death in a metal tube that's sealed from the outside seems like rather a horrid way to go, but at the same time, the submersible that is lost was not particularly well equipped. The control system was a wireless game controller which was infamous for having dropout issues. Using controllers is fine and all, since they're often used in commercial and military applications due to their intuitiveness and better ergonomics (plus the manufacturer doesn't have to design and build a new one from scratch), but using one that was infamous for having connection problems was rather tempting fate.

The lost submersible also didn't have anything like an emergency beacon that could be used to locate them, and it was sealed from outside. Even if they managed to resurface, anyone aboard would still be trapped within the tube, unable to get out.

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[–] Donjuanme@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A couple things are potentially different from how op laid them out. (From my understanding)

The vessel was designed to automatically begin resurfacing after a set period of time underwater, even without pilot input, so it might not be very deep at all. The problem is it doesn't sit very high in the water and is very hard to see.

They don't necessarily have 2 days of oxygen left, those were calculated values, and there may be other gaseous build ups that impair the totally oxygen supplies.

I hope it was over quickly for them, I don't know how you could resurface that type of vessel without breaking it. I hope we will find evidence and be able to piece together what happened, but I suspect it'll just be lost at sea. I don't think there's any conspiracy up keep evidence away from the public, I think most people underestimate how difficult it is to find 4 cubic meters inside a 10 cubic kilometer area, hell that would be hard without that area being covered in water.

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[–] jacktherippah@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I don't like millionaires/billionaires but I wouldn't wish that kind of harrowing ordeal on anyone. I hope they survive somehow.

[–] kabukimeow@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't like billionaires but of course I wish for their miracle survival. As unlikely as it seems.

And if they don't make it, I hope it was a quick and painless death for all of them...

[–] SHITPOSTING_ACCOUNT@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] xaxl@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

These billionaires just bought themselves something money can't buy, a footnote on a Wikipedia page somewhere that their deaths were loosely related to the Titanic.

Given that every billionaire has blood and suffering on their hands in at least ab abstract fashion and it's hard to feel sorry for them too.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lost subs don't tend to have happy endings. Was there ever a successful rescue at all?

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[–] MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm gonna go out on limb and say they're no longer with us.

[–] RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Yeah I don't think you're very far out on that limb. The likelihood of successful rescue is extremely low.

I can't really believe anybody would spend $250K on a submarine expedition with the guy in charge of Ocean Gate, and his incredibly cavalier attitude toward safety.

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[–] ilickfrogs@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Probably not the worst way to go all things considered.

[–] WaxiestSteam69@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At this point, I'd be surprised if they were ever found. Assuming the sub is still intact and not wondering aimlessly, the sheer size of the search area makes it difficult to find the sub.

I'm not familiar with the mechanics of this sub obviously, but I'm given to understand that an emergency ascent should have been initiated by this point if everything was fully functional. That probably points to a design flaw - you should always keep those systems as independent of each other as possible so that if one fails, you can fall back on the other. Of course it's possible that they've since ascended and haven't been found, or got stuck, but assuming they haven't that could imply that the sub experienced an insurmountable failure and they're looking for people who are either gone or near-unrescuable.

[–] AliLunaCat@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

At this point, I think they have less than 24 hours of air left, so I highly doubt they'll be alive when/if the sub is found

[–] beijingb33f@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Unlikely. Even if they could find the sub, safely raising it or somehow docking with it would take too long. They’re almost out of oxygen, so that thing is a sarcophagus at this point.

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[–] Thurkeau@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I would say that all reasonable efforts should be made to rescue or recover anyone and everyone who has gone missing. We can figure out the rest once we exhaust all optons, or have them back on the boat.

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[–] nightscout@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Highly doubt it. I've been watching coverage and it seems pretty unlikely they will be found before their oxygen runs out (assuming they are even still alive and haven't died as a result of an implosion).

What irks me with all the coverage, however, is that no one is pointing out the potential harm to all the people involved in trying to rescue these people. The Coast Guard and other outfits undertaking the rescue attempts are put in danger the whole time they are out there. And of course there's the cost involved as well.

[–] Esjee@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (6 children)

That's the coast guards job isn't it? Should we just let people die without attempting to save them just because it's costly?

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