There is small update.
Banging sounds have been heard near where the sub went missing.
I find it astonishing that people were voicing their concerns about the experimental nature of these subs quite a while ago. All previous dives to the Titanic have also had issues previously. The latest being a battery failure. Another being that someone attached a thruster the wrong way around, resulting in the sub doing circles on the seabed.
People were also required to sign a waiver before boarding, a waiver that mentions the word death three times on the first page.
There seems to be alot of incompetence. The company even refused to let world leading industry bodies inspect and certify the subs. Astonishing!
This 30 minuite video, is also worth a watch over on iPlayer. It documents a few dives to the Titanic on the very submersible that is missing now, it also shows the problem I mentioned above from inside the sub at the Titanic seabed. Well worth a watch.
These people are going to die if they have not already I would have thought.
Air is rapidly running out, even if they did find the sub on the seabed, getting equipment to the site that can bring the sub to the surface would take ages. Not much of it exists on the planet and was not readily available for this.
Imagine it, they may all be sitting there, waiting and knowing about the impending doom that awaits them. I am assuming they would have had to use the toilet in the time they have been down there. Tiny single roomed sub you cannot even stand in.
Imagine paying a quarter of a million quid to literally sit in and smell your own shit and piss, alongside others, while waiting for your death to slowly arrive.
As for bolting people into the submarine. We learnt that was a bad idea in the 60's. That is how they closed the hatches to the space ship Apollo 1. Everyone was incinerated when an electrical fault started a fire and they could not escape. They were on the launch pad doing tests. It is EXTREMELY important to have a way for people to escape for emergencies on topside. You would never open a hatch underwater anyway. They open outwards for a reason, so the pressure of the water keeps them shut when underwater. The fact they do not have one. Is alarming.
These are issues that have come to light so far by these clowns operating OceanGate.
- Use of a carbon fiber pressure vessel. Not the best idea for a sub apparently. Not a deep dive sub.
- OceanGate hire young, inexperienced technicians ONLY. So to inspire newer generations.
- No subject matter experts in submarine operations and safety at the company.
- Does not use lessons learned from NASA and the aviation community.
- Possibility that the atmosphere life support was not tested beforehand.
- Test depth of 4000 meters (Titanic is just shy of that) was not tested at sea before commercially diving the vessel. Issues arose on EVERY single dive to near that depth when they did dive that deep, with passengers. With the 3rd dive to that depth being this current one.
- No way to ventilate the pressure hull. Even underwater this can be done safely. This is bad, because what happens if for example, your electronics start smoking.
- No emergency breathing apparatus (masks)
- No voice communications are equipped. All communication is via data and telemetry. As the OcenGate owner apparently used to get fed up with constant status updates from the topside vessels.
- The comms that do exist malfunctioned during testing.
- OceanGate refused to get an industry body to certify their sub before taking paying passengers.
What a total shit show.
My heart goes out to the families as the people are as good as dead. If they are not already, they will be. There is noway I can see them getting out of this alive. Unless it managed to surface. But even then, due to being locked inside, they are at the mercy of being found in an area that is covered in low visibility right now as it experiences the worst Spring in 40 years.
