Legal Insurrection readers will recall that in June, a deep-sea submersible carrying five people on a voyage to the century-old wreck of the Titanic was found in pieces from a “catastrophic implosion” that killed everyone aboard. Our own James McNault did a detailed assessment of the sequence of events that led to the disaster.
U.S. Coast Guard officials have now announced that the final parts of the wreckage and additional “presumed human remains” were recently recovered from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Marine safety engineers for the US Coast Guard recovered several parts of the wreckage, including the 22-foot vessel’s intact titanium endcap, from the ocean floor Wednesday.The artifacts were located roughly 1,600 feet from the Titanic, the submersible’s destination when it imploded in June, killing all five passengers on board.“Additional presumed human remains were carefully recovered from within Titan’s debris and transported for analysis by US medical professionals,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.The salvage mission was the second, and likely final, to the watery grave. Other human remains and pieces of the Titan were recovered 10 days after it imploded on June 18.
It is being reported that an international investigation into the disaster will continue, and the Coast Guard plans to have a public hearing at a future date.
US court documents uncovered after the implosion indicated that Mr Rush ignored safety warnings about the submersible. OceanGate, which organised dives in locations around the world, suspended all operations after the disaster.The hull of the Titan was made from carbon fibre, with titanium end plates and a small window at one end. Carbon fibre is cheaper than titanium or steel and is extremely strong, but it is a largely untested and unusual material for deep sea dives with human passengers.
As a reminder, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush didn’t hire ’50-Year-Old white guys’ with experience to guide the sub because they aren’t ‘inspirational’, and also directed the company to skim on safety inspections.
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.
I am just glad that the recovery didn’t cost the life of one of the US Coast Guard personnel.
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