Titan Submersible Vessel

[Reality Check]

Scott Manley has a new video out. I had not seen some of this footage before but it may have been in videos up thread. This has more evidence the Titan failed at the glue joint on the front titanium end bell. A large amount of debris from the carbon fiber hull piled up in the rear end bell. Some of the fragments are larger than we have been led to believe the might find of the cf hull. It makes sense that water rushing in the front would push debris to the rear as it is imploding inward.

[RVInit]

LOL, I just came herre to post the Scott Manley video! Thanks!

[Foggy]

I read every word of this with great interest.

[Rolodex]

Thanks for the updates on this story. I didn't realize they'd been holding hearings...btw, what kind of hearings are these? Who's investigating (or whatever)?

[roadscholar]

So, it failed exactly as lots of his peers and engineers said it would.

Shocker.

[RVInit]

Thanks for the updates on this story. I didn't realize they'd been holding hearings...btw, what kind of hearings are these? Who's investigating (or whatever)?

This is an investigative panel made up of US Coast Guard, NTSB, and I think some other orgs. Here is the home page where I got the schedule and links for videos and witness list, etc. An OceanGate attorney is also there and is able to ask questions. She's not impressing me at all.

https://www.news.uscg.mil/News-by-Regio ... bmersible/

[andersweinstein]

Thanks for the updates on this story. I didn't realize they'd been holding hearings...btw, what kind of hearings are these? Who's investigating (or whatever)?

This is an investigative panel made up of US Coast Guard, NTSB, and I think some other orgs. Here is the home page where I got the schedule and links for videos and witness list, etc.
https://www.news.uscg.mil/News-by-Regio ... bmersible/

That home page link is extremely useful, thanks. There you can find the initial press release of June 25, 2023 which explains:

The Coast Guard convened a Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) into the loss of the Titan submersible and the five people on board. ...An MBI is the highest level of investigation in the Coast Guard. Upon completion of the investigation, the Board will issue a report to the Commandant with the evidence collected, the facts established, its conclusions, and recommendations. During the course of the MBI, the Board will work to determine:

• The cause of the casualty, including the cause of any death.
  
  Whether an act of misconduct, incompetence, negligence, unskillfulness, or willful violation of law committed by any individual licensed, certificated, or documented has contributed to the cause of the casualty, or to a death involved in the casualty, so that appropriate remedial action may be taken.
  
  Whether an act of misconduct, incompetence, negligence, unskillfulness, or willful violation of law committed by any person, including an officer, employee, or member of the Coast Guard, contributed to the cause of the casualty, or to a death involved in the casualty.
  
  Whether there is evidence that an act subjecting the offender to a civil penalty under that laws of the United States has been committed, so that appropriate action may be undertaken to collect a penalty.
  
  Whether there is evidence that a criminal act under the laws of the United States has been committed, so that the matter may be referred to appropriate authorities for prosecution.
  
  Whether there is need for new laws or regulations, or amendment or repeal of existing laws or regulations, to prevent the recurrence of the casualty.

The Coast Guard MBI is working in close coordination with other national and international authorities including the United States National Transportation Safety Board, Canadian Transportation Safety Board, French Marine Casualties Investigation Board, and United Kingdom Marine Accident Investigation Branch.

[Reality Check]

The testimony by David Lochridge was riveting. He recounted a trip of the predecessor to the Titan called Cyclops I down to the Andrea Dorea site in 2016:

He was no less blunt in recounting a previous voyage, reportedly in 2016, in which Rush insisted on piloting another of OceanGate’s submersibles, called the Cyclops 1, down to see the remains of the Andrea Doria ocean liner.

Lochridge said he had expected to be the pilot, as the “most experienced” such member of OceanGate’s team.

“Unfortunately, the CEO decided that he wanted to take it down,” Lochridge said. “I objected because I knew sometimes he could do things to please himself.”

But, according to Lochridge, Rush essentially pulled rank: “Just remember I’m the CEO, you’re just an employee.”

At Lochridge’s urging, Rush let him still join the trip on the Cyclops, along with three paying passengers, Lochridge said.

Almost immediately, however, there were issues, according to his testimony.

Rush ignored concerns about the weather and how the currents in the Atlantic, off the coast of Massachusetts, were buffeting the dive platform to and fro.

Later, Rush, at the helm of the Cyclops, struggled to begin the dive, Lochridge said: “He attempted to take it off, he didn’t do it very well.”

As they descended, Lochridge said, he reminded Rush that they had planned to keep some distance from the wreckage because of the danger it poses to divers who get too close. But Rush rebuffed him, he said, with “don’t tell me what to do.”

The Andrea Doria lies relatively close to the surface, only about 250 feet deep — compared to the Titanic, at 2-plus miles — and the Cyclops crew had a “clear sonar image,” Lochridge said.

Still, Rush “smashed straight down on the bottom," seriously limiting visibility, as two of the passengers remarked, “Oh my god, we are right on the wreck,” Lochridge said.

Lochridge advised Rush to assess their surroundings and wait for better visibility before continuing the journey, “which is standard practice for any competent submersible pilot,” he said.

“He just kept arguing with me in the sub, very unbecoming of a submersible pilot,” Lochridge testified. “I’m trying to give the best course of action to get him out of it, [but Rush responded with], ‘No matter what, I’m doing this.’ “

...

“Every time I went to take the controller from him, he pushed it further and further behind him,” he testified of Rush. (Elsewhere in his testimony, he commented wryly on the widely discussed fact that OceanGate submersibles were controlled via PlayStation controller.)

Lochridge said that during the dive to the Andrea Doria, while he had gone to look out into the ocean, from inside the sub, to assess the situation, Rush “never once got out of the seat in the back of the sub.”

“Eventually it took one of the paying clients … she shouted at Stockton to ‘give me the f—ing controller.’ She had tears in her eyes,” Lochridge said.

Rush obliged, in his way, Lochridge said: He threw the controller at Lochridge and “clattered it off the right side of my head,” then it hit the ground and “one of the buttons came off.” (“Robust,” he quipped of the technology.)

Lochridge said he quickly fixed the controller, took the helm and “had us out" within 15 minutes.

...

More at the link.
https://people.com/titan-pilot-ceo-stoc ... ck-8714226

[RVInit]

This is the same incident I posted about. This morning, one of the paying customers testified and she denied this whole thing. Her testimony basically sounded very biased, she absolutely refused to characterize anything as being anything other than completely professional. Given how many people have openly said otherwise, I would believe the incident probably happened more closely to Lochridge's testimony than to Rojas' testimony.

[Reality Check]

This is the same incident I posted about. This morning, one of the paying customers testified and she denied this whole thing. Her testimony basically sounded very biased, she absolutely refused to characterize anything as being anything other than completely professional. Given how many people have openly said otherwise, I would believe the incident probably happened more closely to Lochridge's testimony than to Rojas' testimony.

Thank you for your observations and all the reporting on the hearings. They are very useful!

[Reality Check]

I just watched all the testimony from Dr. Ross from UNC Wilmington. If I had to characterize his job at Ocean Gate I would call him the science whore. I wanted to reach out and slap some sense in the guy more than once. He said that even though there were multiple failures on the Titan on a prior dive including a thruster being set up backwards on the PlayStation controller he considered the decision not to surface as being safe even with paid passengers on board.

[RVInit]

I just watched all the testimony from Dr. Ross from UNC Wilmington. If I had to characterize his job at Ocean Gate I would call him the science whore. I wanted to reach out and slap some sense in the guy more than once. He said that even though there were multiple failures on the Titan on a prior dive including a thruster being set up backwards on the PlayStation controller he considered the decision not to surface as being safe even with paid passengers on board.

I was really surprised at his testimony. Although I will say, he obviously got advice from his lawyer not to embellish and he stuck to that advice pretty well. Yes. No. I totally agree that he was kind of an OG whore, but I could not for the life of me figure out why he was involved at all. He says he did not receive any kind of salary. Did I miss something? Did you also understand that everything he did was for no pay?

So far the testimony that stood out to me the most was Lochridge. They gave him a whole day. Nissen is the second one that stood out to me. Nissen seemed slimy to me. He bragged an awful lot. Claimed that he would be bored to tears to simply be a "maintenance" engineer, that just wouldn't be challenging enough for this genius of an engineer. But every time he was asked about specific elements of the craft he denied having anything to do with the design of it.

I had the distinct impression that Lochridge was expected to be the fall guy for Rush and Nissen. Nissen, the Chief of Engineering, turned over to Lochridge, the head of Marine Operations, not an engineer himself, a vehicle that had obvious defects. That is mind blowing to me. Just like Lochridge embarrassed Stockton Rush on the Andrea Doria dive when Rush got the vehicle stuck and Lochridge got them out of it, Lochridge likely embarrassed Nissen when he submitted pages and pages of defects that any engineer should have discovered himself. And Lochridge refused to sign off on it. He was fired a day or two later. I guess he was supposed to be like the QA guy for the engineering department, but the items he discovered were so blatant and obvious it seemed odd that a genius engineer would consider it to be "done" enough to turn over for his sign off. When asked by one of the panelists if he would be willing to have gotten inside the submersible that was being tested during his tenure Nissen said "no". And when asked why he said "I didn't trust Operations (Lochridge)". He didn't trust the guy that was not willing to sign off on a defective product. Got it.

Finally, Nissen was in a position where Lochridge was gone and that meant it would be Nissen left having to either sign an approval that the submersible was A-OK. Once it was going to be his signature on the line, he decided it wasn't OK after all. He refused to sign off on allowing the submersible to make a trip to Titanic with paying customers and he was fired. Then that hull was scrapped and a new one was built. Imagine if Nissen had signed off on that first hull, the one they tried to get Lochridge to sign off on.

[RVInit]

This is the same incident I posted about. This morning, one of the paying customers testified and she denied this whole thing. Her testimony basically sounded very biased, she absolutely refused to characterize anything as being anything other than completely professional. Given how many people have openly said otherwise, I would believe the incident probably happened more closely to Lochridge's testimony than to Rojas' testimony.

Thank you for your observations and all the reporting on the hearings. They are very useful!

I'm glad some people are finding it interesting and useful. Thanks for posting the more full account of the Andrea Doria incident, that was quite bizarre and I thought it was very much in keeping with so many descriptions of Stockton Rush being an ass. Even his friend, Karl Stanley, who is going to testify next Monday, wrote Rush an email to convey his concerns because he said trying to do it in person would be impossible due to Rush's tendency to blow up in the face of the slightest criticism.

[Foggy]

Whole story is a big "How Not To".

Rush is a good Darwin Award candidate. The other four, I don't know.

[Rolodex]

This article came by me today (not sure how that happened!). It's almost a year old, but only a few months after the implosion. The writer concentrates on Ocean's Gate and how Rush was so anti-testing. It's quite interesting and very well written. More info about Lochridge.

https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/ ... ktail_Hour

[bill_g]

Q: How deep will it go?
A: Let's find out!

[Reality Check]

I was really surprised at his testimony. Although I will say, he obviously got advice from his lawyer not to embellish and he stuck to that advice pretty well. Yes. No. I totally agree that he was kind of an OG whore, but I could not for the life of me figure out why he was involved at all. He says he did not receive any kind of salary. Did I miss something? Did you also understand that everything he did was for no pay?

That is exactly what I heard so I guess science whore is an inaccurate description. He got no salary although he said something about OG paying for travel expenses for the "science team". Who this included was never made clear. He also pretty much admitted these so called "mission specialists" were paid tourists who were along for the ride. I hope UNC Wilmington has cut all ties to this guy. He mentioned he was still an adjunct professor though so maybe not.

I found the description of the aborted dive where the Titian ended up on a partially submerged platform listing 45 degrees to stern to be amusing. All the people on board ended up sliding to the aft bulkhead with some even hanging upside down for an hour. He did his best to minimize this by saying no one was injured. I could just see the board rolling their eyes on that one.

[Slim Cognito]

Whole story is a big "How Not To".

Rush is a good Darwin Award candidate. The other four, I don't know.

The teen was an innocent victim. The father of the teen was gullible, but still a victim. The experienced ocean explorer must've had a death wish. Just my arrogant opinion.

[RVInit]

I hope at some point we will get a diagram of where each piece of the Titan was found in relation to each other and the measurements for how far apart those pieces were. We should be getting more video because I believe they did find the second interface ring, and I know for sure they found the landing skids.

One thing I forgot to mention - one of the panel asked two different witnesses if they overheard or were present during any discussion about the OceanGate monitors within the support vessel picking up any sound that was consistent with an implosion. That was curious to me, and it made me wonder if they had a witness who said OG's own monitoring picked up the sound in real time. One of the panel is also focusing a bit on how Wendy Rush fit into the organization. On paper she was the head of OceanGate Foundation, but I've seen video of her at the controls in the support vessel as the person who was monitoring the dive and typing the messages from the support ship side down to the submersible. So she definitely played a part in the actual dive operations. She is not on the witness list, not surprising, I'm sure her lawyer would absolutely not want her to testify or make any statement for any of the hearings, and probably didn't have to twist her arm either. What will be interesting to me is if they were smart enough to make sure all their assets were hidden well enough prior to anything possibly happening with one of their dives. They certainly couldn't have been dumb enough to think the release form would save them from potential lawsuits.

[RVInit]

There is a new home page for the Titan investigation. Apparently they updated the USCG website and the old link is broken now.

https://www.news.uscg.mil/News-by-Regio ... scription/

[RVInit]

Debris field layout was uploaded today. It's too large for me to attach, but here is a link to the page. Scroll down to the documents section, it's CG-103 Titan Debris Field Chart document found in the Document Library section of the page. Very interesting.

https://www.news.uscg.mil/News-by-Regio ... scription/

[RVInit]

Guillermo Sohnlein is first to testify this morning. I'm a little behind on the feed, but this is just

He is talking about wanting to have an actual submarine - large enough to hold 5 passengers, not require a support vessel, be able to go anywhere in the world, and get down to 6,000 meters. He said none of the sub builders were capable of doing that and this is what caused two guys (with relatively little funding and no experience whatsoever) to decide to build their own.

[RVInit]

Roy Thomas, a representative from ABS, one of the "classing" organizations, is testifying now. Oh my. If the owner of Spencer Composites is watching this presentation he will likely be drinking heavily tonight. I don't know how he is going to avoid lawsuits.

Thomas is being quite thoroughly about why carbon fiber composites are not good materials for pressure vessels for deep sea operations. I was aware of the general "not appropriate material", but this guy is giving specific details as to the difficulties of creating a thick carbon fiber component that would have the same properties throughout the entire thickness. Sounds like it is next to impossible to create such a thing, but also how to evaluate the end result.

[RTH10260]

Roy Thomas, a representative from ABS, one of the "classing" organizations, is testifying now. Oh my. If the owner of Spencer Composites is watching this presentation he will likely be drinking heavily tonight. I don't know how he is going to avoid lawsuits.

Thomas is being quite thoroughly about why carbon fiber composites are not good materials for pressure vessels for deep sea operations. I was aware of the general "not appropriate material", but this guy is giving specific details as to the difficulties of creating a thick carbon fiber component that would have the same properties throughout the entire thickness. Sounds like it is next to impossible to create such a thing, but also how to evaluate the end result.

How come? He only produced a cylinder to customer specs. He was not involved in evaluating fitness for purpose.

[zekeb]

Roy Thomas, a representative from ABS, one of the "classing" organizations, is testifying now. Oh my. If the owner of Spencer Composites is watching this presentation he will likely be drinking heavily tonight. I don't know how he is going to avoid lawsuits.

Thomas is being quite thoroughly about why carbon fiber composites are not good materials for pressure vessels for deep sea operations. I was aware of the general "not appropriate material", but this guy is giving specific details as to the difficulties of creating a thick carbon fiber component that would have the same properties throughout the entire thickness. Sounds like it is next to impossible to create such a thing, but also how to evaluate the end result.

How come? He only produced a cylinder to customer specs. He was not involved in evaluating fitness for purpose.

You know how lawsuits go. If your firm was even remotely involved you had better lawyer up. There might also be a problem with proving that it was built to customer specs.