One of the last messages sent from the doomed Titan submersible during its June 2023 voyage to the Titanic wreckage was "all good here," the Coast Guard said.
My God what hubris. Rush had so many chances to pause the dive or work on a redesign and ignored it. I can’t imagine the fear of being 3000+ feet below and hearing the first cracks of the hull as it starts to implode. Hope it was fast.
I don’t think there were any cracks. Most probably it was, one second there is a submersible and everything seems fine, and the next second there is no submersible. And everything is still fine because we just got rid of a few billionaires for free, and didn’t even have to use a guillotine.
That theory doesn’t explain why they suddenly dropped ballast and attempted an ascension prior to implosion, though.
E. After doing some digging, the comments about the Titan having dropped weights and was ascending during implosion came from James Cameron. Not sure if that makes it more or less trustworthy…
The linked article quotes somebody as saying the dropped weights were most likely to slow the descent as they approached the ocean floor. They just dropped a little weight, but not enough to start ascending again.
I think that’s a fair assessment, mine isn’t all that dissimilar.
My understanding is there were only a few meters between the weight drop and complete communication loss, so either something went wrong directly related to dropping ballast, which caused the implosion, or perhaps cues the sub was in peril were ignored/misinterpreted by the captain, and the weight drop was his ineffective corrective measure.
From what I’ve read about the captian, I think his hubris would have never allowed him to fully consider they might be in real danger.
Something could have gone wrong electronically or mechanically warranting a ballast drop. I have considered this to be a possibility outside of them hearing cracks and suddenly wanting to go up.
I agree that we’re talking milliseconds between the first crack and full implosion. Any cracks in carbon fiber will act as a stress concentrator which will cause more cracking in a rapid exponential process. There’s a reason everyone else doing this said you can’t use that material. Metal has some ductility so a very tiny crack normally won’t cascade like that instantly.
I hope so too. Especially for the kid that was brought along. But even if it was a second or two… knowing you’re about to die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it…
At approximately 2,274 meters, the Titan sent the message, “All good here,” according to the animation.
The last communication from the submersible was sent at approximately 3,341 meters: “Dropped two wts,” meaning drop weights, according to the Coast Guard.
All communications and tracking from the submersible to Polar Prince were lost at 3,346 meters, according to the Coast Guard.
I’m assuming a lot here, but dropping weights would likely mean they were trying to ascend. They may have had just over five meters’ worth of knowing something was going wrong (whatever that means in terms of time) before the implosion.
For an emergency ascent, they’d probably have dropped more than two. They also probably wouldn’t have taken the time to type a message to the surface if it were going wrong that quickly.
It seems more likely to me that they were controlling their rare of descent. I’d expect them to lose a little buoyancy as the vessel compresses, so it seems reasonable that they’d drop the occasional weight as they descend.
Fair enough. That makes a lot of sense. I have heard that the failure model for this thing likely would have been some cracking sounds, and then the implosion, but I probably shouldn’t speculate quite so hard. At any rate, the whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen, and whaddaya know, it did.
Frankly, it was probably cracking and pinging all the way down, even on normal dives. They had steel titanium outer caps on the ends, and carbon fiber in the middle, those two materials stretch and compress very differently under extreme loads.
My God what hubris. Rush had so many chances to pause the dive or work on a redesign and ignored it. I can’t imagine the fear of being 3000+ feet below and hearing the first cracks of the hull as it starts to implode. Hope it was fast.
I don’t think there were any cracks. Most probably it was, one second there is a submersible and everything seems fine, and the next second there is no submersible. And everything is still fine because we just got rid of a few billionaires for free, and didn’t even have to use a guillotine.
That theory doesn’t explain why they suddenly dropped ballast and attempted an ascension prior to implosion, though.
E. After doing some digging, the comments about the Titan having dropped weights and was ascending during implosion came from James Cameron. Not sure if that makes it more or less trustworthy…
The linked article quotes somebody as saying the dropped weights were most likely to slow the descent as they approached the ocean floor. They just dropped a little weight, but not enough to start ascending again.
I think that’s a fair assessment, mine isn’t all that dissimilar.
My understanding is there were only a few meters between the weight drop and complete communication loss, so either something went wrong directly related to dropping ballast, which caused the implosion, or perhaps cues the sub was in peril were ignored/misinterpreted by the captain, and the weight drop was his ineffective corrective measure.
From what I’ve read about the captian, I think his hubris would have never allowed him to fully consider they might be in real danger.
Something could have gone wrong electronically or mechanically warranting a ballast drop. I have considered this to be a possibility outside of them hearing cracks and suddenly wanting to go up.
I agree that we’re talking milliseconds between the first crack and full implosion. Any cracks in carbon fiber will act as a stress concentrator which will cause more cracking in a rapid exponential process. There’s a reason everyone else doing this said you can’t use that material. Metal has some ductility so a very tiny crack normally won’t cascade like that instantly.
I hope so too. Especially for the kid that was brought along. But even if it was a second or two… knowing you’re about to die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it…
I’m assuming a lot here, but dropping weights would likely mean they were trying to ascend. They may have had just over five meters’ worth of knowing something was going wrong (whatever that means in terms of time) before the implosion.
For an emergency ascent, they’d probably have dropped more than two. They also probably wouldn’t have taken the time to type a message to the surface if it were going wrong that quickly.
It seems more likely to me that they were controlling their rare of descent. I’d expect them to lose a little buoyancy as the vessel compresses, so it seems reasonable that they’d drop the occasional weight as they descend.
Fair enough. That makes a lot of sense. I have heard that the failure model for this thing likely would have been some cracking sounds, and then the implosion, but I probably shouldn’t speculate quite so hard. At any rate, the whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen, and whaddaya know, it did.
Frankly, it was probably cracking and pinging all the way down, even on normal dives. They had
steeltitanium outer caps on the ends, and carbon fiber in the middle, those two materials stretch and compress very differently under extreme loads.The hubris the man had was so perfectly demonstrated in his interview.
“There’s a rule you don’t do that. Well I did.”
And now he’s dead.
Famous last words. “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”