There are five missing on the OceanGate Titan sub:
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British businessman Hamish Harding, father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who are members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy officer and leading Titanic expert.
An interview with Stockton Rush from 2018 shows that a woke mindset can be deadly:
Stockton Rush, 61, added that such expertise was unnecessary because “anybody can drive the sub” with a $30 video game controller.“When I started the business, one of the things you’ll find, there are other sub-operators out there, but they typically have, uh, gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and they — you’ll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys,” Rush told Teledyne Marine in a newly resurfaced undated Zoom interview.“I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational and I’m not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology, but a 25-year-old, uh, you know, who’s a sub pilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational,” he continued.
Rush also skimped out and found loopholes to avoid inspections because he was so convinced nothing could happen to his sub:
But DailyMail.com revealed on Tuesday that OceanGate refused to have the craft independently inspected and even fired a director who raised concerns about its safety.The company has said said seeking classification for the Titan would not ‘ensure that operators adhere to proper operating procedures and decision-making processes – two areas that are much more important for mitigating risks at sea’.Classification involves recruiting an independent organization to ensure vessels like ships and submersibles meet industry-wide technical standards. It is a crucial way of ensuring a vessel is fit to operate.In a blog post titled ‘Why Isn’t Titan Classed?’ OceanGate suggested classification would take too long.The post said: ‘While classing agencies are willing to pursue the certification of new and innovative designs and ideas, they often have a multi-year approval cycle due to a lack of pre-existing standards…’Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation.’The company said its ‘innovations’ included a real-time (RTM) hull health monitoring system which is ‘not currently covered by any classing agency’.It also suggested its own in-house safety protocols were sufficient. The blog concluded that ‘by itself, classing is not sufficient to ensure safety’.
Three more vessels joined the search and rescue operation for the missing OceanGate Titan sub near the Titanic:
A Canadian aircraft deployed to assist with rescue efforts for the missing Titanic tourist submersible picked up “underwater noises” in the vessel’s search area, according to the Coast Guard (USCG).”Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area,” the USCG in the Northeast region announced on Twitter early Wednesday morning.The Coast Guard said the detection of the underwater sounds in the designated search area prompted investigators to deploy remotely operated vehicle to relocate and investigate the origin of the unusual noises.Though the search efforts “yielded negative results,” the USCG said the operation continues.
The oxygen will likely give out today for those onboard the small vessel.
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