OceanGate Expeditions Announces All Sub
Passengers ‘Have Sadly Been Lost’
National Review,
by
Ari Blaff
Original Article
Posted By: Dreadnought,
6/22/2023 3:29:57 PM
OceanGate Expeditions, the exploration tourism company operating the submersible that went missing while descending to the wreck of the Titanic earlier this week, released a statement Thursday afternoon acknowledging that the five passengers onboard its ship, Titan, “have sadly been lost.”
“This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss,” the company said in a statement.
The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the tragic news during a Thursday afternoon press briefing.
“On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families,” Rear Admiral John Mauger said.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
DW626 6/22/2023 3:44:59 PM (No. 1497611)
May the crew R.I.P., and condolences to their families and friends.
33 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 6/22/2023 3:47:59 PM (No. 1497614)
So much for the use of carbon fiber in deep submersible application. Fortunately for all aboard, it was instantaneously quick and painless.
26 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Hazymac 6/22/2023 3:54:34 PM (No. 1497621)
We all knew what had happened several days ago. It is just too horrible to contemplate. The bottom of the ocean is as inhospitable as outer space. In 1960 the bathyscaphe Trieste descended to the bottom of the Marinas Trench (Challenger Deep), about 11,004 meters (36,102 feet). When the vessel was three-fourths of the way down, the American and the Frenchman heard a loud crack but kept on descending to the bottom. They made it back to the ocean surface. Courageous or crazy? Maybe a bit of both.
21 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 6/22/2023 3:54:53 PM (No. 1497623)
Guess the CEO of Ocean Gate should have hired more 50 year old ex-military white guys.
67 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
planetgeo 6/22/2023 3:58:11 PM (No. 1497626)
Tragic, but hopefully with a lesson going forward. While exploration and adventure under dangerous circumstances are part of the human experience, this shows that it would be wise to do so only with fully tested and scientifically certified equipment for those conditions. And especially if the participants are essentially amateurs or tourists as opposed to development engineers and test pilots. These people were neither.
22 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
slipstik 6/22/2023 4:04:56 PM (No. 1497633)
The whole point of this adventure was not to get down to the Titanic. It was to come back. Nowhere in this saga did I see a "plan B". Like if this goes wrong we'll do that, or we have an ROV on hand to hook us up if the game controller fails.
The only plan B was to die, horribly.
Sounds like PPP to me.
13 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
jalo1951 6/22/2023 4:15:39 PM (No. 1497641)
Better to die quickly in an implosion or run out of air and suffocate fully knowing that end was coming? No good answers but I think we all knew they had already perished. Condolences to those who loved and cared about them. In the end death gets us all. No matter who we are or how much money we have. Maybe it's time to let the Titanic RIP.
26 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
DVC 6/22/2023 4:19:15 PM (No. 1497645)
My aircraft that I built is made of composites, but not carbon fiber, and I did analytical work on composites at work for a defense contractor. The main tube was wound carbon fiber, with titanium ends bonded on, providing flanges for the spherical titanium end housings to bolt to.
IMO, the bond joint between the titanium and the carbon ring is a huge risk, structurally.
But, a sphere is a perfect pressure vessel and a cylinder with spherical ends (which is what this sub was) has uneven stress distribution in the region where the cylinder joins the hemispheres. Any hatch or window penetration has the effect of greatly increasing the stresses in the hemisphere at the hatch edges. They had a plexiglass window in one hemishell. I would tend to think that window flange is another most likely failure point, stress wise.
All the successful deep diving subs that I am aware of have a pressure hull which is a pure sphere, usually two halves bolted together. They do have windows, but without actually doing a comparison, it seems like this sub's window is quite a bit larger than most others.
5,600 lbs per square inch outside pressure at the Titanic's depth. One online source states that the window is 21 inches diameter. That gives the window an area of 346 square inches. So the total force on that window was a bit over 1.9 million pounds of force. Like stacking 650 cars on the window, or more than two fully loaded and fueled Boeing 747 jetliners.....on the window alone.
29 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
BeatleJeff 6/22/2023 4:36:05 PM (No. 1497654)
Many years ago I declared that sightseeing planes and helicopters were flying death traps and that you would never catch me on one. Add these deep sea tourist submersibles to that list.
21 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
TurtleDove 6/22/2023 4:41:51 PM (No. 1497658)
My condolences to those that were lost int his tragedy.
BUT, why won't Oceangate, a private company, NOT be billed for the cost of the rescue operation?
21 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
paral04 6/22/2023 4:46:36 PM (No. 1497663)
Well, they won't be able to blame any 50 year-old White guys, will they? Idiots! Why didn't they surface when they lost communications?
18 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 6/22/2023 4:57:12 PM (No. 1497669)
Interesting tidbit of information online. If accurate, a huge thing.
The window was certified by it's maker to 4,200 ft depth. Titanic is three times that deep. So, going to a depth that has three times more pressure on the window than the manufacturer thinks it can safely withstand.
Life is all about choices. Choosing to use the "4,200 ft window" at 12,600 ft.....it was a bad choice, although at this point we don't know exactly what failed first.
16 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 6/22/2023 5:00:52 PM (No. 1497673)
It was an experimental craft in a high risk environment billed as a tour. Somehow that doesn't seem right.
15 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
HPmatt 6/22/2023 5:15:02 PM (No. 1497680)
What they heck was the USCG Rear Admiral taking the stage? It should have been those still alive from the Company.
I guess they had the sadzzz.
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Ketchuplover 6/22/2023 5:16:27 PM (No. 1497681)
This thread has once again proven how valuable our Lucianne family here is. Thank you, especially, L-Dotter DVC, for your background knowledge on this and sharing it with us.
19 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
john56 6/22/2023 5:17:43 PM (No. 1497682)
Sounds like it was "Crack" and that's it. No time for a distress call, no time to say "Help me, Jesus." Next thing they knew, they were talking to St. Peter about their eternal living arrangements.
13 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Kate318 6/22/2023 5:54:16 PM (No. 1497693)
I imagine this company is soon to be sued out of existence.
12 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 6/22/2023 6:13:27 PM (No. 1497698)
Condolences to their families.
7 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
earlybird 6/22/2023 6:14:51 PM (No. 1497699)
A whistleblower was fired by OceanGate and a lawsuit ensued. From another article:
Lochridge, a submarine pilot and underwater inspector, said in a legal filing that he was "trained to recognize flaw and points of failure in subsea equipment." His job at OceanGate involved "ensuring the safety of all crew and clients during submersible and surface operations," according to the filing.
The Titan relied on carbon fiber for a hull that would carry passengers as deep as 4,000 meters, a depth that Lochridge claimed in the court filing had never been reached in a carbon fiber-constructed sub. According to his claim, he learned the vessel was built to withstand a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate planned to take passengers to 4,000 meters.
Lochridge also expressed concern that the company planned for the sub to rely on an acoustic monitoring system to detect if the hull was breaking down or about to fail. That wouldn't provide much help in an emergency, Lochridge claimed in the filing, because the acoustic analysis would only alert people about imminent problems, "often milliseconds before an implosion.
Lochridge also contended that testing was inadequate and the warning system would not come until implosion was imminent.
Sounds as though Lochridge knew what he was talking about.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/titan-submersible-maker-oceangate-faced-safety-lawsuit-in-2018/ar-AA1cOEpH
10 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
formerNYer 6/22/2023 6:19:35 PM (No. 1497700)
Prayers to the families that lost loved one. At their depth, I'm pretty sure it was a catastrophic failure of the hull or window which would have been a very quick death.
Also, the bikes the professionals use on the grand tour (like Tour de France) are almost 100% carbon fiber and I've seen them crack in half like egg.
7 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 6/22/2023 6:22:47 PM (No. 1497702)
Titan and the five people onboard are gone and so is Ocean Gate Expeditions.
6 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 6/22/2023 6:46:30 PM (No. 1497716)
Construction and engineering best practices didn’t seem to be used here. Sounds like short cuts were taken. My prayers for the passengers and condolences to the families.
7 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
danu 6/22/2023 7:04:11 PM (No. 1497722)
RIP to pioneering souls .
will the owner learn: go woke, lose folk?
3 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
athina 6/22/2023 7:10:01 PM (No. 1497729)
100 out of 100 people die, no matter how.
May their loved ones be drawn to our Creator and Lord and so know the peace that only He can provide.
6 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
bad-hair 6/22/2023 7:24:57 PM (No. 1497738)
#4
He tried
Had no takers. Qualified 50 year old white guys know a F U when they see it.
5 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
bad-hair 6/22/2023 7:31:22 PM (No. 1497743)
And our NEW company "Titanic Expeditions" will start taking deposits in August. Sign up NOW !!! $400,000 !!
3 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
earlybird 6/22/2023 7:47:04 PM (No. 1497754)
A wee tutorial on carbon fiber and CFRP ( carbon fiber reinforced plastic - there’s that word!)
https://www.sglcarbon.com/en/carbon-fibers-and-cfrp/
1 person likes this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
DVC 6/22/2023 8:30:26 PM (No. 1497782)
Pressure vessels with composite structure have been very successful....for INTERNAL pressure like various gas bottles, because composites are very good in tension. Internal pressure puts the shell in tension...think of a balloon. Composites are far weaker in compression, and all the loads on a sub hull due to water pressure are compression. Think of stepping on an empty pop can.
And beyond this, IMO more important, is the difficulty designing safe, reliable joints between a composite structure and an attached metal structure. I have seen a video of the attachment process of the end titanium ring flange to the carbon fiber cylinder. They buttered it up with some thick black adhesive and put the ring in place. I have no idea if the designer of the joint had any experience with mixing materials in a joint like this. There didn't appear to be any bolts through the joint, although these could have been added later.
The modulus of elasticity of titanium is 15 million and the modulus of elasticity of carbon fiber composites is usually around 30 to 40 million. This mismatch in stiffnesses of the materials is of much concern to this structural engineer. The titanium will flex twice as much under load as a similar sized and shaped piece of
carbon fiber. Matching this flex at the joint would take careful design, and lots of engineering modeling - what I did professionally for aerospace and weapons for 40 years.
And, without any bolts to stabilize that bonded joint - I am suspicious of it.
Also, the window frame and window itself are both items which dramatically increase the local stresses in the end hemisphere.
The maker of the window said it was safe to 4,200 ft depth. Titanic is 12,600 ft deep. Three times the rated pressure on that window than the maker approved.
Many things that would keep me from going down in this device.
7 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
ladydawgfan 6/22/2023 8:38:02 PM (No. 1497786)
What is so tragic is that 111 years after it sank, the Titanic is still claiming lives.
5 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
DVC 6/22/2023 8:38:42 PM (No. 1497787)
Excellent info, #19. A hull certified to 1,300 meters (4200 ft) fits exactly with what I found on the window rating.
But structure is only as good as it's weakest component. This may well have been the window.
And the acoustic monitoring makes sense for internally pressurized vessels which are "stable", meaning not subject to massive buckling failures. In a tension loaded composite structure, you'll get pops and cracks as some of the fibers straighten slightly, as the structural limits are being reached. For a compression loaded structure....it's exactly like he says, milliseconds before implosion you may get a crack or pop.
Again this is the main carbon cylinder....the bonded joints and windows are whole different problems.
4 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
DVC 6/22/2023 8:41:56 PM (No. 1497791)
Good intro information, #27, as usual.
I used carbon fiber to make a leg brace for my BIL who has leg nerve issues.
Neat stuff to work with, but very much like my fiberglass aircraft composite experience.
2 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
DiegoDude 6/23/2023 5:11:57 AM (No. 1497897)
If what's said about how this outfit was run and the equipment being cobbled together is true, there must have been a waiver that customers signed saying " take a ride at your own risk."
1 person likes this.
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