Holly Patrick @ The Independent:
The OceanGate CEO believed to be missing on board a Titanic exploration submersible described how the vessel was “built with camping” parts and operated with a “game controller” in a resurfaced video.
In November 2022, Stockton Rush told CBS the Titan craft was built with “off-the-shelf components.”
Pointing at parts of the vessel, Mr Rush said: “We can use these off-the-shelf components. I got these from Camping World.
“We run the whole thing with this game controller,” he added, picking up a gamepad.
Reporter David Pogue said pieces of the submersible seemed “improvised,” but Mr Rush told him the vessel would be “safe” even if parts didn’t work.
Mr Rush is believed to be among the five-person crew aboard the craft.
The problem is not the game controllers, the Home Depot pipes, the trucker toilet, or the camping light, though they do point us vaguely in the direction of the real problem.
The real problem is that this “company” was on a shoe string despite offering an insanely dangerous service, and they did it as cheaply as they could for most things, and even where they were using “high Tech” materials they picked things that would further the ability to run a cheap operation at the expense of safety.
They picked carbon fiber and tungsten because they’re light and strong, and the company is a sketchy operation that can’t afford its own ship and needs to launch from a sled they can move between rentals. If a fucking ballistic missile sub can go neutrally buoyant while made of steel, so could a 5-person day-tripper. Those brittle materials are light and strong and great… until they aren’t, and then they fail catastrophically. The portal, at least at one point, was only rated by the manufacturer for half the depth they intended to go to. They didn’t invest in any way to egress without external assistance. They didn’t do any destructive testing or get type certified because they couldn’t afford another hull. They didn’t buy a god-damned transponder, despite having lost track of the sub at least once before.
Shoot, the Logitech controller and RV light were probably the most reliable things about this death trap.
100% correct. Game controllers are used in many industrial applications because they are designed to be reliable and durable even in the face of 10 year olds throwing them at walls. They are also interfaced with easy, well-understood protocols and can be easily replaced with off-the-shelf spares.
Where the Titan fails as a submersible is the almost macho and cavalier attitude towards basic safety at almost every level. Simple implements like audio transducers, a sonar system, or even a way to signal when surfaced were skipped in the name of the most bargain-basement craft that could be designed.
Even the use of carbon fiber was a serious red flag. We usually think of carbon fiber as a strong material, and in most cases it is. However, it fails insidiously: it slowly accumulates damage and weakens over time. The active monitoring system they built into the hull, if some sources are to be believed, never worked correctly because of faulty software.
Perhaps the surprise isn’t that this whole situation happened. Perhaps the real surprise is that it took this long for disaster to strike.
