Titan Submersible Vessel

[RVInit]

I just found out there is a live hearing of the Titan incident. Apparently it started about 3 hours ago, but you can drag the timeline back to the beginning.

Edit: The first link is the actual Coast Guard YouTube link. This one starts at the beginning, you can drag the timeline to the starting point.

[chancery]

The Independent is posting detailed summaries of testimony. I found the website a little jittery; there are at least 4 web pages of summaries, and it's a little tedious to scroll back to the beginning navigating the wealth of sometimes repetitive information is awkward and tedious. Worth the effort, though, if you're interested in the subject.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... tml?page=2

[roadscholar]

Newly minted Law of Human Nature, in honor of Trump and Rush:

"Sometimes thinking you are a genius can make you stupid."

[RVInit]

Photo released today. This piece of the Titan submersible was found 1600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.

TitanShell1.jpg (39.76 KiB) Viewed 1110 times

[Suranis]

So are they planning Tourist Submarines to visit the Tourist Submarine?

[RVInit]

So are they planning Tourist Submarines to visit the Tourist Submarine?

I think that would be a hard pass. They pulled the pictured piece out of the water along with the end caps, rings, and the strut. I think the carbon fiber cylinder is probably in thousands of tiny pieces, but not entirely sure about that.

[neonzx]

So are they planning Tourist Submarines to visit the Tourist Submarine?

I think I might go down with James Cameron if I was invited.

[chancery]

Photo released today. This piece of the Titan submersible was found 1600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.

So are they planning Tourist Submarines to visit the Tourist Submarine?

I think that would be a hard pass. They pulled the pictured piece out of the water along with the end caps, rings, and the strut. I think the carbon fiber cylinder is probably in thousands of tiny pieces, but not entirely sure about that.

I was surprised that the pictured piece was not crumpled and shredded, but I guess it was made of titanium, and it was sufficiently stronger than the cylinder so as to survive the implosion.

[RVInit]

Photo released today. This piece of the Titan submersible was found 1600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.

So are they planning Tourist Submarines to visit the Tourist Submarine?

I think that would be a hard pass. They pulled the pictured piece out of the water along with the end caps, rings, and the strut. I think the carbon fiber cylinder is probably in thousands of tiny pieces, but not entirely sure about that.

I was surprised that the pictured piece was not crumpled and shredded, but I guess it was made of titanium, and it was sufficiently stronger than the cylinder so as to survive the implosion.

I'm not sure of the exact material the white covering was made of, but I know the only titanium pieces were the end caps and the rings that attached the end caps to the carbon fiber cylinder. The white part is just a covering . The white covering surrounded the cylinder and then there was an extended area on the back, behind the "back" end cap. I think this white part is the white part that surrounded the extended area, not the part that surrounded the actual cylinder. That extended area contained a type of foam that helped with buoyancy as well as batteries and other equipment.

[Reality Check]

I was surprised that the pictured piece was not crumpled and shredded, but I guess it was made of titanium, and it was sufficiently stronger than the cylinder so as to survive the implosion.

That white covering was pretty thin and was not part of the pressure containment so it would have had water pressure on both sides. I would imagine the implosion would have damaged it but large pieces were probably blown away from the vessel by the implosion. The titanium end bells were under pressure but when the carbon fiber shell imploded the pressures would have quickly equalized both sides of the end bells keeping them intact.

The literally fatal decision was to use carbon fibers for part of the containment system instead of mostly titanium with some thick glass for the view portal..

[chancery]

Thanks, that's interesting.

[RVInit]

Holy shit.

When I have time I will give a synopsis of Lockeridge testimony. The Trump administration OSHA apparently was helping Oceangate against the whistleblower. And the board that is doing the investigation seems quite interested in this issue.

[bill_g]

Lemme guess: Let's strip away all those unnecessary safety regs that raise costs and prevent business from moving forward.

[RVInit]

Lemme guess: Let's strip away all those unnecessary safety regs that raise costs and prevent business from moving forward.

Yes. And worse.

Lockeridge was recruited from Scotland. He has impressive credentials and Stockton Rush hired him under lots of false pretenses. The engineering was being done by an outside company and Lockeridge was working closely with them. But they weren't going fast enough, weren't cutting enough corners, etc. So, Rush hired a man named Nissen, who testified yesterday. Nissen came across as every bit the arrogant know nothing that Stockton Rush was. They were two of a kind. They fired the outside engineering company, told Lockeridge he was not allowed to have any kind of communication with anyone in that outside company and Nissen hired a bunch of 23 years old, straight from college, and in some cases not even graduated yet. Those youngsters didn't know any better and wouldn't ruffle feathers. Lockeridge was ruffling feathers regarding safety.

Eventually, Lockeridge became a whistleblower under OSHA, they sent him an official letter that he qualified for OSHA whistleblower protection, but when Oceangate sued him, threatening to contact immigration, contact former employers, contact his neighbors, and generally threatening to badmouth him to everyone he knew, OSHA basically told him "well, why don't you just settle with him, there is nothing we can do for you". He is not the one who pointed out that this was during the Trump administration, but he gave dates and yes, this all happened under the Trump administration. So, they just left him hanging high and dry. He's not American and this all happened within a year or less of his coming over here. He quit his job, moved his whole family over here, upended his whole life and then had a nightmare experience with not only his employer but OSHA who sent a letter to Oceangate to OUT him as a whistleblower and then stood by and said "we can't do anything, just settle with Oceangate" when they sued and threatened him. Eventually he did settle with them because he was left high and dry, paying for his own lawyers, and his life was a complete nightmare with this guy who had deep pockets and lots of contacts. Stockton Rush's wife Wendy is a great-great-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus, who chose to remain onboard the Titanic when it went down. They both come from very wealthy families.

[RVInit]

Look what I found! Very cool video from the ROV that found the nose cone of the Titan. The nose cone is the section that is photographed above. This video is a closeup view of the nose cone and other items found around the nose cone. The Titan imploded at around a depth of just over 3300 m

https://www.news.uscg.mil/Portals/11/He ... -7rA%3d%3d

[RVInit]

Animation of the events and real time dive statistics - depth, pressure, time of day, actual communications between the Titan and the Polar Prince support vessel.

https://www.news.uscg.mil/Portals/11/He ... 6499043115

[RVInit]

Tym Catterson was a contractor with Oceangate. He testified most of the afternoon on Monday. After parts of the Titan were located, he helped determine which parts could/should be pulled up for inspection.

After questioning, the chairperson on the panel asked him if he had any further remarks to make. He used that time to give his opinion about the failure point of the submersible. Here are his remarks.

[Rolodex]

Oh man. Poor Lockeridge. What a clustermuck. I hate that OSHA hung him out to dry.

[chancery]

Federal whistleblower suits are a hyper-specialized area of the law. I wonder if his lawyer was up to the work.

[RVInit]

Federal whistleblower suits are a hyper-specialized area of the law. I wonder if his lawyer was up to the work.

I wondered about his lawyer as well, it seemed like if he was officially under the whistleblower protection how the heck did this end up happening to him. I also attribute part of it to the very likely chance of Trump making sure OSHA was hogtied. During his testimony he said that at one point his OSHA contact told him he had 18 other cases ahead of him and he might as well just settle with Oceangate. I can't even imagine how frustrating this must have been. I knew he had settled a lawsuit, but I didn't know anything about how OSHA just hung him out to dry and that's what made him just sign paperwork and walk away.

There were already preliminary hearings that were held behind closed doors. The public witness schedule is quite interesting. Most days there are 3 to 4 witnesses scheduled. Lochridge is the single witness that they scheduled for an entire day. I will upload the witness list and witness schedule in a separate posting. The witness list identifies the names and their relationship to Oceangate or which agency they represent. The schedule gives the dates and times each witness will be appearing. Wednesday was a scheduled off day this week, but next week there will be hearings all five days.

[RVInit]

Tym Catterson's testimony was interesting, I finally got a chance to listen to it today. I posted a clip from a channel that featured his opinion on which part of the submersible failed. He believes the glue that was supposed to bind the titanium ring to the carbon fiber cylinder on one side is what failed. I saw a video where an engineer had featured the video that was taken when the rings were glued to the carbon fiber and he opined the glue job had several red flags.

The discussion of the gluing of the rings onto the carbon fiber starts at 5:34. The man talking at 5:34 is Tony Nissen. He came across in the hearing as being at least as much a narcissist as Rush. He is an engineer who talked Rush into doing all the engineering in house. He hired some newly graduated and not yet graduated engineering students. What was so odd about his testimony is how he alternately bragged about his own genius while denying any responsibility for designing or testing or really actually doing anything at all. I was left puzzled about what exactly did the engineering department do at Oceangate, because according to Nissen they were all pure geniuses, smarter and more clever than any other engineers alive, but didn't actually do anything and therefore weren't at all responsible for anything having to do with any of the submersibles. He got 2.5 hours of testimony time on Monday morning and it was at least 2 hours and 25 minutes too long.

[chancery]

Federal whistleblower suits are a hyper-specialized area of the law. I wonder if his lawyer was up to the work.

I wondered about his lawyer as well, it seemed like if he was officially under the whistleblower protection how the heck did this end up happening to him. I also attribute part of it to the very likely chance of Trump making sure OSHA was hogtied. During his testimony he said that at one point his OSHA contact told him he had 18 other cases ahead of him and he might as well just settle with Oceangate. I can't even imagine how frustrating this must have been. I knew he had settled a lawsuit, but I didn't know anything about how OSHA just hung him out to dry and that's what made him just sign paperwork and walk away.

Lawyers who are good at this kind of case don't advise their clients to fold just because the employer brings a counterclaim, even if it means that they sometimes end up losing money on a case.

Hmm. I guess I was confused. The only federal whistleblower statutes that I know anything (very little) about are Qui Tam suits under the False Claims Act.

It turns out that OSHA whistleblower suits are quite different, and private attorneys aren't allowed to participate. There are likely some advantages to such a system, but only if the OSHA enforcement division is adequately staffed and if there is some mechanism for protecting employees from retaliatory litigation. If whistleblowers have to pay for private counsel to represent them in retaliatory litigation, and if private counsel can't participate in the recovery from a successful whistleblower claim, there's a pretty obvious mechanism for employers to neutralize OSHA protections.

[RVInit]

Witness List:

WITNESS LIST- TITAN MARINE BOARD OF INVESTIGATION HEARING WEBSITE LISTING.pdf

(178.05 KiB) Downloaded 21 times

Witness Schedule:

SCHEDULE- TITAN MARINE BOARD OF INVESTIGATION HEARING WEBSITE LISTING.pdf

(229.94 KiB) Downloaded 19 times

[RVInit]

New video has been released prior to today's hearing. This video shows what is left of the pressure hull after the implosion. It was all found pretty close together.

The forward titanium dome that was used as the door appears first and a short distance from the forward dome is the aft dome. That ring with some of the carbon fiber still attached is either partially still attached to the aft dome, or it landed on top of the inverted dome and just looks like it may be still partially attached.

Here is the link to the video.

https://www.news.uscg.mil/Portals/11/He ... fWBA%3d%3d

[RVInit]

Oh lordy. I am behind on the feed, wanting to listen from the beginning. This lady is full on fan of OceanGate.

The panel is trying to get a sense of what a Mission Specialist was all about. She's trying her best to keep up the farce that a Mission Specialist actually "did things".

Finally, one of the panelists starts reading from the paperwork and it gets really uncomfortable. First she reads something about having to be able to distinguish colors because various electronic equipment is color coded, wiring are different colors, etc. So, then she asks 'did you do any work related to electronics". Answer is "no". Then she reads the part about mechanical equipment and that part was super weird. Basically at one point getting into the submersible "we walked by mechanical equipment".

That turns out to be the gist of what it is to be a Mission Specialist. Well, she mentioned that she had a job where someone would ask for a tool, so she had to be able to know where the tools where so she could hand a tool to someone. And then she also "walked around". Not sure what the walking around was about but apparently that was some important job she performed.

Also she gives a completely different account of the Andrea Doria incident where the sub got stuck under the bow and Lochridge eventually had to get them out. The truth may be somewhere in between, but I would bet Lochridge's account to be more close to the truth of it. According to Lochridge this caused a huge rift in his relationship with Rush because it embarrassed Rush in front of clients. He was trying to get Rush to allow him to get them out of the mess and in the end he says Rush threw the controller at him and it hit him in the head and a small button came off it. She entirely skips over that they were stuck, and says that the only reason that Rush handed over the control to Lochridge is because he was standing up in the hatch and had a better view and was able to navigate away from the Andrea Doria. But that doesn't make sense. The skids were stuck under some part of the ship, so not sure how viewing it from the hatch above (this was the original cyclops, not the Titan) would help him get a better view of how to get the skids unstuck. Throughout her testimony right from the beginning she was painting a picture of OceanGate and Stockton Rush as being the best thing since sliced bread. She went on several dives, so she gave them a shit ton of her money.

Maybe it's hard when you've parted with that much dough to admit you were duped. After all, she walked by mechanical equipment.