And for a $250,000 imploding coffin.
This is not a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. It is a modern tragedy of narcissism, greed, incompetence, stupidity, and irony.
"Experts from within and
outside OceanGate raised concerns about the safety of its Titan submersible as
far back as 2018, years before it went missing during a deep-sea dive to the
Titanic shipwreck site.
"Several of those
complaints have resurfaced this week, as the frantic search for the vessel —
and its five passengers — continues.
"'It hasn't surprised
us,' said Will Kohnen, the chair of the Marine Technology Society's
Submarine Committee (formerly the Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee), about
the Titan's disappearance. 'We've been aware of this project for some time
and have had some concerns.'
"In March 2018, after one of the international industry group's annual conferences, Kohnen drafted a letter to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — the pilot of the missing vessel — expressing 'unanimous concern' on behalf of its members about the development of the Titan and its planned Titanic expeditions.
"'Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry,' he wrote, according to a copy obtained by the New York Times.
"Kohnen told Morning Edition's A Martínez on Wednesday that the
group's main concern was a lack of oversight and adherence to industry-accepted
safety guidelines.
"'Most of the companies in this industry that are building submersibles and deep submersibles follow a fairly well-established framework of certification and verification and oversight, through classification societies,' he said. 'And that was at the root of OceanGate's project, is that they were going to go solo, going without that type of official oversight, and that brought a lot of concerns.'" [...].
-NPR
"The submersible Titan,
operated by the private company OceanGate Inc. as a high-priced adventure travel opportunity, was supposed to visit
the encrusted hulk of the Titanic ocean liner, which rests
on the muddy seafloor 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic.
"But on Sunday the submersible endured some kind of incident or malfunction and went silent 1
hour 45 minutes into its 2½-hour dive.
"The very deep sea is a forbidding,
almost alien environment, inhabited only by odd, eyeless creatures that have
adapted to pressures that could instantly crush the most advanced Navy
submarine. What’s more, the Titanic’s resting place is 370 miles from the
Canadian coast, and farther than that from any port from which rescue vessels
can be deployed.
"'These challenges make the search for the missing vessel and its five occupants akin to an effort to rescue astronauts,' Adm. Thad Allen, former commandant of the Coast Guard, told The Post."
-THE WASHINGTON POST
Aboard the vessel were the company's CEO, a
British billionaire, a Pakistani businessman and his teenage son, and an
experienced marine explorer (see bios).
Five crew members onboard the submersible Titan were probably killed instantly in a “catastrophic implosion” as it descended to the wreck of the Titanic two miles below the surface of the Atlantic ocean, US Coast Guard officials announced on Thursday. A large debris field containing multiple sections of the vessel were spotted earlier in the day by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) scouring the seabed near the Titanic wreck site 400 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, officials said at an afternoon press conference in Boston. -The Guardian
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