81–90 of 98 posts
All these people knew about it but didn't make any public warnings? The pilot is somewhat aware but says nothing to the customers?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the fact that Rush seemed to have designed the company to avoid liability with US alone is worth the read.
Perhaps he forgot the ultimate liability is himself aboard.
All these people knew about it but didn't make any public warnings? The pilot is somewhat aware but says nothing to the customers?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> passengers Except they all signed waivers, per the article, that they were mission specialists. The nuance was important and the jury is out on whether the implication was fully communicated to the people who paid to join. The article seems to indicate that it was...
IANAL, but I very strongly suspect that a court would rule in favor of OceanGate. I think a court would say "a mission specialist who pays you, and not the other way around, is a passenger" Calling them anything other than passenger (per the article) was specifically designed to subvert regulations that would have required them to certify the sub. And courts don't like that very much.
You can waive risks, but not a certainty of death. If it was inevitable that the sub would implode at some point because it was so poorly constructed, and Stockton Rush was just playing a very elaborate game of Russian roulette with his customers, then the waiver isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
The other problem is that I’m fairly sure that OceanGate didn’t disclose everything they knew, which would also invalidate the waiver.
For example, David Pogue signed the waiver and went down in it (albeit not very far). He seems like a fairly sensible person with a family who doesn’t have a death wish, did they really disclose to him about the window not being rated for the depth, the whistleblower lawsuit, the letter in 2018 to OceanGate warning them to stop development, etc?
A waiver built on lies is worse than useless, far from getting them out of legal peril it proves that they knew that death was a real possibility.
Maybe somewhat off-topic, but if you don't know, there is a video on YouTube published 11 months ago by "CBC NL - Newfoundland and Labrador" titled "This submersible takes passengers to The Titanic wreck. Climb in!" (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClkytJa0ghc ) If I put myself 11 months in the past watching that video, I would probably think this company OceanGate is so professional with zero possibility of mer…
I'm not sure the word explorer should ever be diluted to be just sitting down in a vehicle as a passenger. At worst, they sat on a plane to Newfoundland for a number of hours, sat on a boat to get to the launch site and sat in a submarine for a few hours (assuming a successful itinerary). Mitigating factors for an explorer should be (imho): novel destination, novel experience of natural forces, novel challenge of act…
few have been to Titanic
few have experienced the significant pressures involved
ever drive a car while actively sweating bullets and shitting bricks?
see above
See significant pressures.
Can't say this was required since the interface was a console controller
See engineering challenges + novel materialsEarlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, most modern software engineering doesn't directly lead to someone dying, so in a lot of cases, it makes economic sense to try and push out that additional feature quickly rather than combing every line for potential bugs. Most customers are going to go with the product with more features even if there are a few more bugs, compared with one with zero bugs and much less functionality.
Depends how severe the bugs are. If they're rare edge-case ones that won't result in significant loss of data or functionality, I can believe that; but I've seen far more instances where the product grows so many buggy features that it becomes barely usable as the bugs start affecting core functionality, while the additional features are basically useless to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article mentions that at one point the viewport only had a depth rating only 1,300 meters, but it’s not clear if it was upgraded later on. The more I think about it, would it have been able to withstand even the first dive to Titanic depths without it being upgraded?
The articles comments on acrilic conversion factors are (obliquely) about that. Essentially for any construction material you have a failure rating and a factor of safety - the allowable load is failure divided by FOS, so your materials working load is usually significantly under its failure load. Equipment rated for depths of 1,300 will be capable of several times that, possibly only reaching immediate material fail…
Acrylic does not come without drawbacks. The engineer needs to have full knowledge and understanding of these drawbacks to successfully design, manufacture and assemble an aquarium that will stand and support aquatic life for years. To ensure longevity, the typical large aquarium is designed with a factor of safety of 11 to 12. This may seem high, but when one considers the implications if one of these large aquariums were to fail, and the sudden, catastrophic event that occurs when they do fail, it becomes more understandable and acceptable. Unfortunately, aquariums have failed for various reasons, leading to tremendous damage, huge monetary losses and, at times, complete loss of the aquatic life. There have been high-profile public aquarium failures, which typically involve huge aquariums, as well as private aquarium failures that range from several hundred to thousands of gallons of water loss. Some common reasons why acrylic aquariums can fail include:
- Poor bonding of acrylic panels creating a weak seam
- improper installation
- poor manufacturing of the acrylic panels, resulting in inferior strength and stiffness
- residual stress molded or formed into the panel during manufacturing
- introduction of large gouges or notches that can significantly increase stress in the panel
Unfortunately, these issues commonly do not reveal themselves during inspection, assembly or the initial setup stages. Further, when the actual failure event does occur, which is typically months to years after installation, it is quick and catastrophic. The seam or crack opens nearly instantaneously without warning. The phenomenon behind this is called creep rupture—the disentanglement of the molecules of plastic over time, at a stress level significantly below the yield strength—yes, below the yield strength—of the plastic.
[1] https://www.plasticstoday.com/materials/when-acrylic-aquariu...
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/aquarium-explosion-hotel-aquadom-fi...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> passengers Except they all signed waivers, per the article, that they were mission specialists. The nuance was important and the jury is out on whether the implication was fully communicated to the people who paid to join. The article seems to indicate that it was...
IANAL, but I very strongly suspect that a court would rule in favor of OceanGate. I think a court would say "a mission specialist who pays you, and not the other way around, is a passenger" Calling them anything other than passenger (per the article) was specifically designed to subvert regulations that would have required them to certify the sub. And courts don't like that very much.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IANAL, but I very strongly suspect that a court would rule in favor of OceanGate. I think a court would say "a mission specialist who pays you, and not the other way around, is a passenger" Calling them anything other than passenger (per the article) was specifically designed to subvert regulations that would have required them to certify the sub. And courts don't like that very much.
If that was the reason then he was probably paying his lawyers $15 an hour too. You can waive risks , but not a certainty of death. If it was inevitable that the sub would implode at some point because it was so poorly constructed, and Stockton Rush was just playing a very elaborate game of Russian roulette with his customers, then the waiver isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The other problem is that I’m fairly…