Canada Missed Chances To Inspect OceanGate's Titan Before Fatal Implosion (wired.com)
- Reference: 0183996596
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/19/1743202/canada-missed-chances-to-inspect-oceangates-titan-before-fatal-implosion
- Source link: https://www.wired.com/story/canada-missed-chances-titan-fatal-implosion/
> A report from Canada's Transportation Safety Board has highlighted regulatory failures that [1]allowed OceanGate's unregistered, unflagged, and uncertified Titan submersible to operate out St. John's, Newfoundland, for years before it imploded on a tourist trip to the wreck of the Titanic [2]in 2023 . "When it came to the Titan, critical information existed across multiple federal government organizations, but no one was responsible for connecting the dots," says TBS chair Yoan Marier in a statement. "Without a complete picture of the operation, the Titan continued to operate in Canada without regulatory oversight." [...] As OceanGate continued to operate from St. John's in 2021 and 2022, the Titan made successful dives to the Titanic and several sites within Canadian waters. The company eventually interacted with a total of 10 Canadian federal agencies, including Parks Canada, the Department of National Defense, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But the company's operations were never directly reported to the team responsible for marine safety. "In terms of the actual people that were responsible for marine oversight, their focus was on the Canadian support vessel," says TSB investigator Jason Melvin.
>
> While TSB investigators did not have access to the wreckage of the Titan itself, which remains with the US Coast Guard, they did analyze portions of the carbon fiber left over from its manufacture. They calculated that a hull made to OceanGate's exact specifications might have been able to make hundreds of millions of dives to Titanic depths before failing. However, the composite samples as built had porosity and waviness between layers and were ground down in a way that might have introduced defects. When the TSB tested the compressive strength of the carbon fiber, it indicated the material could fail in as few as 30 deep dives. [...] The TSB is recommending increased oversight of the riskiest vessels and improvements in information sharing between departments, and is requiring that all human-occupied submersibles be subject to international construction and safety standards.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/canada-missed-chances-titan-fatal-implosion/
[2] https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/06/19/1842254/titanic-tourist-submersible-goes-missing-with-search-under-way
Caveat emptor (Score:2)
If you're spending $250,000 for a joyride, you should do some risk analysis of your own.
Home made submarines are mostly unnecessarily complicated ways of drowning as should be scrutinized with a jaundiced eye.
Re: Caveat emptor (Score:3)
For accuracy's sake the people in Titan didn't drown. Given how fast it happened they would have been simultaneously roasted and crushed.
I don't think it would matter (Score:4, Interesting)
We're always trying to shift the blame to government but here I don't think there's anything the government could really do unless we want to start walking down ports. The guys who did this crap already knew what they were doing was unsafe and that any regulator that came across it would shut that shit down fast. So what they would do is they load everything up and then take it out to sea until they were far enough out that they were no longer covered by Canadian law.
At that point all you've got is maritime law which is pretty lax.
There are ways to stop this but it would require a lot more regulation and good luck getting that implemented with all the money and politics. It wouldn't just affect assholes like these it would impact every business on the planet. Now I would argue that's a good thing because we could certainly do with more regulation after 50 years of deregulation but again, money in politics.
Re: (Score:1)
> Now I would argue that's a good thing because we could certainly do with more regulation after 50 years of deregulation but again, money in politics.
Adding more regulations to attempt to catch submarine accidents like this, that virtually never happen, and may never happen again, is stupid and pointless.
Re: (Score:3)
I disagree. It actually needs less regulation.
The siloing of knowledge and duties is why it was always somebody else's problem. So you simply take out all the regulations that obligate siloing and replace all of that kerfufle with a single rule: "If it's on your plate and nobody else has published that they've done the work so far, it's your responsibility, silos be damned, and failure leaves you liable".
That's it.
That's all we need. A removal of siloed thinking and a duty to complete all of the scheduled w
That's 12-year-old thinking (Score:3)
You're trying to boil down complex processes to a single sentence. That's the kind of thinking a 12 year old engages in. I'm not insulting you but I am calling you out. You are a full grown man and I think you know better.
There's a guy on YouTube that does these hilarious videos about how formula 1 teams cheat. So the formula One governing body will come up with all sorts of rules and the racing teams will do increasingly crazy shit to cheat those rules and win, oftentimes they will violate the Spirit o
Re: (Score:2)
This is a case where regulation KILLED.
Basically this a was thing that was essentially marketed to wealthy tourists. It WAS done under a regulatory environment, and so those people had far more trust in it than they should have. I bet had they been forced to drag the thing out to international waters and do some sketchy bitcoin transaction to pay or whatever they would not have found takers!
Regulation of this kind of stuff simply does not work. What regulator has any experience inspecting a deep sea sub?
Re: (Score:2)
On the one hand, yes, there's no good way to regulate technology which is only used in a very limited number of vehicles. It would have to be more like spaceflight where it's regulated based on what damage it could do to third parties and not the staff and crew.
On the other hand they could have just called up James Cameron and the submersible engineers he knows, asked them if it was safe and waited for the laughter to stop before refusing to let it operate from Canada.
It seems that everyone involved in oper
Reading is fundamental (Score:2)
The people who built the submarine intentionally sailed it into international waters in order to get around the regulations that would prevent them from deploying an unsafe submersible like that. There were regulations in place to stop them. The point I was making was that it is trivial to get around those regulations because you can just load your shit up sail it out into international waters and suddenly blammo no regulations.
The solution would be additional regulations that prevented them from taking
Re: (Score:1)
Having seen about 3 documentaries about this incident, I have to agree. During all the interviews, the CEO was really intent to do what he was doing regardless of internal or external interference. Going so far as to let the carbon laminate hull sit outside during winter subject to the elements.
There were so many many points at which there was the opportunity to stop, pointing the finger at the Canadian regulatory bodies is a bit unfair.
The CEO would retitle positions and name people aboard as crewmembers t
Re: (Score:2)
There was little opportunity to prevent Stockton Rush from operating an unsafe vessel outside of a totalitarian environment we wouldn't want. However, when you start offering rides to paying customers, things change. That should and can be regulated. It is hard to hide. Furthermore, Rush fired staff who pointed out the problems. A better whistleblower system might have made their voices heard.
Re: (Score:2)
From what I remember from the initial report, OceanGate did everything they could to avoid being in any country's jurisdiction so they would not be subject to any country’s rules and regulations. The company was based in Washington state in the United States, but the OceanGate Expeditions, Ltd was registered in the Bahamas. The Titan was not registered in any country as the Bahamas refused to register the submersible without adequate documentation and technical specifications.
Yeah, you could blame regulatory (Score:3)
But Stockton Rush was hellbent on skirting rules and not listening to anyone on safety. He would have found a way to get that sub in the water.
Re: (Score:2)
I only wish he could have found a way to get more of the Forbes list onboard. Aren't there a whole hundred of them? We're going to need a bigger carbon-fiber submarine for this job...
Re: (Score:2)
Those on the Forbes list who were remotely interested in visiting the Titanic will have had people to assess the risk and they will have said "don't do it" (unless they stood to inherit).
Re: (Score:2)
I'll admit, I'm not sure if the people on the sub were or weren't on the Forbes list. But I feel confident in saying they also "had people", and those people didn't prevent them from climbing into the vessel.
Blame Canada! (Score:1)
We can incorporate Captain Crunch into the famous song now.
Blame Canada!
Blame Canada (Score:3)
Should we blame the government?
Or blame society?
Or should we blame the images on TV?
No, blame Canada, blame Canada
With all their beady little eyes
And flappin heads so full of lies
Blame Canada, blame Canada
We need to form a full assault
It's Canada's fault
So? (Score:2)
This seems like a situation where it's very hard to get excited about the idea that it's the regulator's problem. Did some Canadian fed technically have the authority to inspect? Quite possibly. Is there some sort of justification for even the cost of performing the inspection, much less any undesired knock-on effects of the notion that literally all vessels must be inspected no matter what, in a case like this? Seems harder to make that case.
There are a lot of situations where large portions of the publ
Self-loathing Canucks (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no one nor organization to blame other than the CEO that launched that stupid sub. They fucked around and paid the ultimate price. no one else ot blame and no one else responsible for any of it.
You canucks need to avoid self-loathing and turning your nation into a nanny state of bureaucratic nonsense.
Re: (Score:3)
By your thinking, airlines ought to be allowed to operate using experimental aircraft and stock aircraft that are not properly maintained. It's one thing for an inventor to be reckless and kill himself. It's another when you take paying customers.
Re: (Score:2)
A submarine imploding generally doesn't impact bystanders. A plane falling out of the sky very much can.
Re: (Score:2)
About "paying customers" - It is interesting to contemplate how the GP's viewpoint is basically anti-oligarchical. He's OK with the disaster because of who was on the sub. If it had been normal people on that submarine, if the tickets were $80 and his mother was thinking of taking the plunge, he would take a much different stance.
Government can do a lot but not everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly I feel bad for that kid that didn't want to go on the ride but was cajoled into it anyway.