OceanGate suspends operations after Titan submersible implosion

HandBanana@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 384 points –
OceanGate suspends operations after Titan submersible implosion
theguardian.com
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The Titanic fanously sank on its maiden voyage, so that's a little different. The Titan submersible was successful for hundreds of dives before the implosion, which I'm sure gave the team a false sense of security and ultimately led them to ignore all the red flags.

The Titan imploded on it's 14th commercial dive. Also, during testing the hull was damaged by pressure cycling and had to be repaired or replaced. OceanGate claimed at one point the Titan had done ~50 test dives, but not all at the depth of Titanic. IMHO, the false sense of security was born of ignorance.

Hundreds? I thought it was more on the order of dozens, and not many dozens at that.

Not hundreds, that person was incorrect. Their entire fleet of 3 subs had done around 200 dives total, so none of those 3 subs has done hundreds of dives. Depending on which source you read, the Titan had been to the Titanic between 3 and 14 times prior to the accident. It seems even the journalists reporting on the story couldn't get solid facts out of OceanGate.

Also, Titan was the only sub they actually designed and built.

Their first two subs were purchased. They didn't design them, they didn't build them.

They used their first sub pretty much as it was. They used their second sub as a kind of trial platform to develop some of the systems that they later used on Titan - stuff like the game controller for steering the sub, for example.