World News

22063 readers

52 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

‘You’re remembered for the rules you break’: OceanGate CEO who was piloting the Titan admitted in 2021 that the sub’s construction had ‘broken some rules’ (fortune.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

“I’d like to be remembered as an innovator,” he said, speaking from the interior of one of OceanGate’s submersibles. “I think it was [famous American General Douglas] MacArthur that said, ‘You’re remembered for the rules you break.’”

“I have broken some rules to make this,” he conceded. “I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon fiber and titanium—there is a rule that you don’t do that. Well, I did.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Yeah, James Cameron has been to the Titanic and back 33 times. And to the Mariana Trench, and who knows where else. It's not impossible to do it safely, but that requires spending money on the correct materials, listening to your engineers, cross checking with third party engineers, and not rushing things. Carbon fiber is a stupid material for a sub hull, using different materials with different expansion and contraction rates for your pressure vessel is a stupid decision, not having a way for the passengers to self-rescue is stupid, using a wireless controller without (multiple) hardwired backups is stupid.

The entire thing reeks of a CEO who doesn't want to take the time to do things properly in fear of investors losing interest. And I get that fear, I work for a small company as well (not building submarines) and you do have to move quickly with a lot of things. But you DON'T rush things when human safety is a factor.

That sub should have been remotely operated dozens of times and gone through multiple iterations before they ever let a living creature inside it. It should have been x-rayed between every dive to find microfractures in the brittle carbon fiber hull. Multiple prototypes should have been built and extensively tested to find flaws in the design or assembly process.