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?
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
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.
750 people drowning is also unusual, and there’s also been rescue attempts.
All these victims have loved ones, and i don’t wish death on anyone, but for the billionaires I find it quite hard to care much.
I still hope they’re saved, though; and if they are I very much hope the experience will have changed them.
750 people drowning is also unusual
It’s terrible but not that unusual.
Unfortunately it is not that unusual since the EU stopped Mare Nostrum to save money
That’s just not the same. Drowning is quick and if you don’t save them immediately they’re most likely dead. Slowly suffocating in a sub while the clock ticks and something can be done about it is a different story.
Learn to care.
You’re assuming they’re suffocating, when the smallest fault in the hull’s integrity would make the thing implode, killing them before they realized what was happening.
Like everyone, my ability to care has limits. You can’t worry and care about everything. I’ll give my fucks for those who didn’t grow rich exploiting others, thanks.
And they were diving to look at the titanic, everyone’s favourite maritime disaster.
sure. It has nothing to do with the fact that in one of cases they are 5 billionaires while in the other one they are 750 poor migrants. No, totally not.
Not entirely no, I didn’t see any news outlet leading the story with “5 Billionaires missing after Submersible lost contact”. For quite some time we didn’t even know who was on board. It’s more the fact that boats in the Mediterranean sink all the time, it’s still tragic but we know that that’s an issue we have now (most people unfortunately seem to have decided that they do not care that much). A submersible going missing and the coast guards of 2 countries looking for them, while thei only have air for a couple days, no one knowing where they are and it involving the titanic guarantees clicks, it’s almost like a movie plot. The fact that they are wealthy is certainly not the reason for it though, it’s the circumstances surrounding it, it’s unusual. People also know how ships work and why they capsize, while most people don’t have the slightest idea how deep sea submersibles work.
So yes, the ship capsizing and killing that many people is horrible and should get more attention, especially from the Goverments involved. It’s ridiculous that we let those poor people drown by the thousands and treat the ones who made it like scum. But I’m not convinced the Titanic story got traction BECAUSE the victims have money.
really? The first point of information I found out was that it cost 250k to get on.
"hey did you hear about the submarine that’s lost?
“no?”
“It cost 250k to get on, to go see the titanic wreck”
pretty much how my entire day went yesterday with various coworkers
so you think that 2 governments would had started spending millions if 5 migrants had somehow been trapped in the seabed of the Mediterranean?
5 migrants? No fucking way. 5 average citizens of any developed nation? Sure. We perform expensive and resource intensive search and rescue operations for people lost in the wilderness or out at sea all the time. And once the media brings attention to it, there’s a lot of pressure to keep the funding going, otherwise next election cycle people are going to remember the current leadership as “those guys who just left some poor people to die to save money.”
The Thailand cave rescue was all over the news and they were poor.
Its about novelty, nothing more nothing less.
A bunch of rich ppl have died on Mt Everest this year, nobody gives a shit as its a common occurrence.
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.
“OceanGate” sounds a lot like Heaven’s Gate right now ;P
And Watergate. Anything [something]gate is bad news.
Ah, another dummkopf manager who thinks a software methodology can be applied to hardware.
Well, better hope he can deploy the fix in production within the next what, 10 or so hours?
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”.
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.
if you live in europe, the Mediterranean sea is you know, right next to you. And way much closer than the distance of the titanic to the shore in America, which is about 1000 nautical miles.
I don’t know anything about Mali, which is closer to to me than Titanic, but I do know a lot about the Titanic.
That’s what I’m more upset about.
Who gives a shit about a couple of billionaires. Why does this have to be a world-wide news story? Why don’t we care about the 100s of refugees that die all the time in maritime accidents and why are those things dominating the news?
Time and time again we give the rich people all of our attention. Fuck that. We shouldn’t be letting the media direct our attention like this.
It was an issue for a lot of international organizations, but Greece and EU made themselves look like fools https://vlemmy.net/post/119595
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.
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.
I agree woth this post. Wealth has nothing to do with this. And if they survive they can easily pay the bill.
Pretty hilarious that you think a billionaire would foot the bill if they are (or their families if they’re not) rescued.
There is no rescue in this instance, only an expensive recovery. And there are enough environmental hazards in the world at this point, that I don’t think a 5m sub on the sea floor is going to matter much. Most climbers are abandoned to their fate as they made the reckless decision to ascend, just as these people made the reckless decision to descend.
It’s still part of S&R. Lost swimmers, ships, small planes, or just people lost in the woods, there are always attempts for recovery long after any chance of survival is gone.
Yea climbers may be abandoned very high up on Everest, when there’s no safe way to bring them down. But subs, we do look for subs. Let’s not needlessly be dicks about it.
Let’s not needlessly be dicks about it.
You do you. I will be whatever I want about it however.
Sunk subs can also be an environmental hazard.
Just out of curiosity… how do you figure that a tiny sunken submersible would become a hazard, much less an environmental one?
Probably not a big deal at that depth, I mentioned it as only a general addendum. But it probably has a battery, and those tend to be removed from sunken ships and subs together with other risky chemicals if possible.
I remember the case of a ship sinking with a shipment of new cars, and they recovered every one of those cars because they didn’t want even one polluting the environment.
Regardless they’ll want to search for it for the human(e) reasons primarily anyway.
It’s kinda poetic for them to go down next to the titanic, itself a story of complacency and excess/opulance.
Darn tootin’.
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.’
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.
Exactly, there’s enough evidence that they’re just willfully negligent. Fuck them. The victims should have done even 5 mins of research on the company before getting in the sub.
Not only that, one look at the thing they chose to go down into the water in was enough for me to wonder what kind of hallucinogens they must’ve been on to accept that risk.
According to David Lochridge (their Director of Marine Operations who was fired and sued), the passenger viewport of the original sub (buit in 2018) was only certified for depths of up to 1,300 meters (4,265 feet), and OceanGate would not pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport certified for 4,000 meters, the depth at which the Titanic rested.
Whether that defect was corrected in this version of the sub (built 2020-21) is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, a German entrepreneur who took a trip in this sub in 2021 reported several problems with the electrics and one dive was aborted at 1600ft. So whether these new problems were addressed (by someone who wanted to cheap out on a window) is also unknown.
4km down - I get the willies if I see more than 20 metres of water underneath me and I can’t see the bottom.
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Jesus Christ you people are insane.
Should we send rescue missions up Everest to ensure the families of rich thrill seekers get to bury their loved ones, or should we maybe put those resources into saving real, living people?
It’s unfortunate that their risky joy ride went south, but it would be an actual tragedy if we used hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars of public money to maybe find a few bodies. That money should be used more efficiently helping more people who actually need it.
I’m not the one getting in a rickety submersible and paying a quarter of a million for the displeasure.
they had to sign a waiver that mentions the possibility of death 3 times on the first page to dive in a vehicle that has never been safety certified and that was criticized years ago by almost 40 experts in a letter to the CEO. who is more insane? this safety mission will cost a fortune regardless of the outcome.
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.
I understand, not that their lives don’t matter. It’s just that we don’t pay attention to the ones that really do.
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.
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…
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.
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.
To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with using a controller to control things, off-brand or otherwise.
Both industry and the military use off-the-shelf game controllers for things, because they’re easy to obtain, ergonomic and relatively intuitive.
Although using a wireless one that was infamous for having dropout issues, without some backup mechanism that could also be used to control the submersible was probably something of a mistake. At minimum, you’d expect that they would use one that was wired, just in case someone forgot to charge the batteries before hand, and/or didn’t bring a spare.
Sure, but not for something as safety critical as the primary way to control it. There’s just so many failure modes. Imagine if one of the sticks pots failed and made them spin uncontrollably. Regardless, they had IIRC six different independent fail-safes to force them to surface. So I’m sure they put some more thought into it than people are giving them credit for.
I’m not going to diss on Logitech, they make some good reliable controllers. I would place them bottom on the list of things that probably broke.
That being said. I can understand why someone from the outside sees a plastic controller and wonder why they didn’t go with the more expensive plastic controller. But in the end, they both have the same parts. I would also find it VERY strange that there wouldn’t be a backup controller.
Though it is hard to take pity on the situation when one has to consider. That 250k a ticket is more then 20 single mothers working 2 jobs, so they can feed their kids, so this dude can go see the titanic… in person… Because video documentaries of every angle of the titanic in 4k resolution don’t exist in 2023 apparently.
It’s more than a little ironic they [presumably] died in an accident caused by cutting corners on regulations and safety by saying things like “certifications cost too much time and money, we shouldn’t have to train someone just to convince them that this is safe”, as well as doing things like firing safety personnel when they object to the submersible’s worthiness.
I saw someone call it the ‘minimim viable submersible’ and I’ve never heard a better description as someone who spends all day working on minimum-viable-product style projects
💀
You fuckin know it lmao I was just reading on Twitter how they’re sending up a c-130 and some special military submersible to help with the search. Who’s paying for that? 🤷🏻♂️
It’s very ironic that the wealthiest man in Pakistan and his son are going to die in a submarine when 100;s of Pakistanis just drowned trying to seek refuge from the country theses men exploited.
Its karma.
And here I was beginning to lose faith in karma
I’m not really in the business of defending billionaires but I think at least one of them, the guy who brought his son, was involved with charities:
"He works with his family’s Dawood Foundation, as well as the SETI Institute - a California-based research organisation which searches for extra-terrestrial life.
“Shahzada is also a supporter of two charities founded by King Charles - the British Asian Trust and the Prince’s Trust International.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65955554
He sounds (sounded) like a good person… I do find it interesting that the other billionaires don’t have any mentions of charitable works in articles I’ve read in them.
Every billionaire uses charities.
They’re a way to exert control over the money that would normally go to taxes, and be up to the government to spend.
It’s not inherently bad, but charity is not quite the saving grace of billionaires that many make it out to be.
If people were willing to pay taxes and work toward equitability, charities for the poor wouldn’t be necessary.
Yep. I just want these fuckers to pay their fair share in taxes and to stop using their wealth to influence politics.
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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.
Probably not the worst way to go all things considered.
Found yes, alive no.
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.
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?
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.
I don’t get why the Logitech controller is so focused on. I get that it’s probably not the right controller due to it’s age and wireless only nature but COTS parts are often more reliable than in-house ones. The lack of certification as you mentioned is a much larger issue.
Any game controller, would be insufficient to put 5 peoples lives in danger.
If you were going to use a game controller to do so anyway, you’d use one that can be easily replaced, maybe something manufactured in the past decade. That F710 is old (2011) and honestly didn’t rate all that well compared to other controllers of it’s time. It’s wireless, adding needless risk.
The certification is all part of it. The control systems need to have backups. The gamepad aspect is interesting because it’s blatantly spitting in the face of safety which seemed to be the CEO’s style anyway.
Would it have been better than a new xbox controller? I’m not sure, perhaps not if it the new one was at least wired.
dear God just think if the part that failed was the controllers batteries
I wouldn’t trust that controller for a dungeon run in the Elder Scrolls Online and here’s this dude visiting the Titanic in person with one. They did say he has backups on board, though.
I just … can’t
I work on robotics and drones for the military and we use game controllers for teleoperation all the time. There are some times we use more rugged and robust controllers, but they are essentially just expensive, yellow Playstation controllers with e-stop buttons on the bottom (look up Fort robotics controller).
I think you’d be surprised at how often the military uses game controllers for mission critical tech. The convergent design of game controllers has kind of solved the problem of minimal, handheld, input-output machines that are capable of commanding difficult procedures.
flying any passengers with em?
Rarely in my line of work but we do do it sometimes. To your point, outside of what I do I’m not sure how often game controllers are used in situations like passenger flight or submarines where you can’t just mash the e-stop button and bail out.
Yeah, I know the navy has used them for ages on robotic control.
And fly by wire is everywhere now. But the systems involved, they’re pretty hardened.
I think a wired control on it’s own isn’t a horrible sin, it just seems to me that in a world with as much tech as we have sitting around, someone can make something a little more rugged for something as critical as this particular part.
And of coure the elephant in the room is we have little data about this whole setup. It’s possible he had a laptop in there where he could open up a terminal, or maybe he had access to the lines and motors directly. If someone can reach back and trigger the ballast tank themselves, it negates a lot of control worries.
Good money is on explosive compression anyway. That hull shape is dodgy AF
Do you think it’s fun killing people and pretending it’s a video game?
What? They don’t pretend it’s a game, they just use game controllers. Killing people is the game for them.
Wait, so they’ve done this dive before? For some reason I thought it was the first time
They have money
They did have money but the people involved Tham Luang cave rescue didn’t and that received a ton of attention. Similarly with the Chilean miners stuck underground for 2 months. You also have Kathy Fiscus (an old story but well known at the time) and Nutty Putty caving incident. There is no shortage of similar stories about people getting stuck in places that received wide attention.
The fact they are they rich is only really influencing where they ended up and how they got there.
the quality of the sub really triggers my schadenfreude
For me, it’s because this situation is a nightmare situation. I can’t think of many more aweful ways to go. There is a chance that right now people are dying in a tube at the bottom of the ocean. Slowly. Or even worse, they could be on the surface. Able to see out their window but suffocating to death just hoping to see a ship come by. Maybe they saw a ship and it passed by. Maybe they died instantly is a rapid collapse.
I dunno, it’s just the epitome of horror. I keep finding myself thinking about possibilities and what it’s be like and what I’d do.
If they’re on the surface the interior is probably sloshing in vomit, as well as everything else.
More mysterious. Spookier. Generally more novel. Like you said, people get lost at sea all the time. People rarely get lost thousands of miles below sea.
Nah, it’s only 4km. If they weren’t lazy billionaires, they’d get out and walk home.
One thing I can say is if they ever do find the sub intact, its very likely these guys recorded their last hours on their phones and we are very likely to see that at some point… talk about nightmare fuel.
It’s mostly the being rich thing.
It’s really sad that something like this gets so much news coverage and international support, while poor people are facing similar fates and we all pretend it’s not happening.
I understand the news coverage. These are folks who are relatable to a lot of western audiences. People aspire to their wealth. The international support and rescue efforts though are a little shameful. You don’t see this kind of efforts when it’s migrants fleeing war and oppression.
I see the attention on the war in Ukraine similarly. What Russia is doing is shameful and I’m glad Ukraine is getting so much help. At the same time Yemen has it much worse. Hardly anyone even knows there is a war happening there, but it’s American built bombs that are dropping on neighborhoods. They’re not quite white and relatable enough to get us all putting their flag on our Twitter profiles.
Traditional media coverage + social media hype. Add in the fact that it’s a group of billionaires gallivanting in the deep sea. It’s a recipe for becoming a media sensation across all types of people.
It seems you’ve already identified the main part. Also the fact that it is a sexy story, shipwreck squared
It being so completely ridiculous. If a boat sinks, it just sinks… bad luck.
But this was some crazy person using some jerry-rigged submarine and then rich people actually trusting that.
Probably the significance of the dive site, and I’m not sure how many commerical submarines go missing every year, maybe a few private ones, but seldom in waters this deep.
I don’t like millionaires/billionaires but I wouldn’t wish that kind of harrowing ordeal on anyone. I hope they survive somehow.
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.
Thing probably breached. And imploded. Insta death. I was reading that the acrylic window was only rated to 1,300 m (4,300 ft).
That thing was a joke. They used a game controler for steering and everything but the hull itself was the cheapest crap one can imagine according to the BBC…
Agreed. Once I saw how cheap they built it…. It’s basically curtains.
Hope I’m wrong
It was also sealed from outside, so even if they managed to safely surface, they have no way of opening it, or getting out for air or anything of that nature.
It’s basically a coffin.
