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Titan Submersible, Part 3-3: How sloppiness caught up to OceanGate
Early history set the stage for the implosion
George Pillari
November 16, 2023
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Category: Using Quick and Dirty Thinking, one of the Seven Deadly Stupidities.
OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush may have portrayed himself as a maverick who dared to do things differently. His lifetime record of achievements includes becoming a professional pilot at 19 years old and modifying an existing small submersible and successfully diving in it. He also was involved in a handful of miscellaneous ventures. His record is not without accomplishment, but does it justify the level of faith that people had in him?
Another troubling data point in the Titan story is that as Titan was being constructed, OceanGate’s chief pilot, David Lochridge raised concerns to OceanGate’s senior management about Titan’s design and materials. Lochridge wanted the vessel to get classified. OceanGate did not want to spend the time or the money. Lochridge, the ultimate anti-quick-and-dirty thinker, was subsequently terminated for OceanGate’s claim of “leaking confidential information.”
In addition to not going through the classification process, Titan’s hull did not undergo “Non-Destructive Testing,” or NDT. NDT is an important branch of materials science and is exactly what it sounds like. In a destructive test, the material is stressed to the point that it breaks down. For example, a flame could be held up to a wing of an aircraft to test the temperature at which the material in the wing breaks down.
For obvious reasons, NDT is the preferred approach for industrial projects like Titan. NDT utilizes x-rays, sonar, and other methods to look inside the material and test its molecular structure and look for structural defects in real time. NDT could have followed the impact of multiple dives of the Titan to identify structural changes and defects before they became catastrophic or life threatening.
From Quality magazine, “I was stunned to learn that the Titan submersible had supposedly not undergone any NDT testing,” said Greg Weaver, president of WeaverNDT, and an NDT professional with nearly 25 years of experience. NDT professionals acknowledge that the NDT process would not have guaranteed a different outcome for Titan, but nevertheless, were puzzled as to why such testing was not done.
Video Simulation of Titan Failure
Finally, there is the unexplored relationship between OceanGate’s founders. Together with Rush, OceanGate was founded in 2009 with Guillermo Sohnlein. Sohnlein left OceanGate in 2013 but retained his ownership stake. What did he do when he left? He started Blue Marble Exploration.
Blue Marble’s website features a picture of a scuba diver in the ocean with the words, “We’re on our way to explore the rest.” The next Blue Marble trip in a sophisticated submersible, is to Dean’s Blue Hole, an essentially uncharted deep-water destination in the Caribbean.
Do you think this was an amicable split with Rush? I don’t. While Sohnlein has spoken out in the media in defense of Rush and OceanGate after the Titan disaster, what other move did he have? Anything other than a staunch defense of his former partner would have created a story of its own that Sohnlein probably did not want circulating. From the Blue Marble website:
An entrepreneur with a passion for exploration, Guillermo Söhnlein has successfully launched ten for-profit ventures and four nonprofit organizations focused on technology innovation, space commercialization, and ocean exploration. An expedition leader, submersible pilot, and scuba diver, as co-founder and CEO of OceanGate (2009-2013), Söhnlein led six ocean exploration expeditions with crewed submersibles in Puget Sound, Monterey, Catalina Island and Miami.
Interview with Sohnlein
So, Sohnlein was the original CEO of OceanGate and then Rush took over after Sohnlein left to start a directly competitive company? Surely Sohnlein had plenty of time to update the Blue Marble website if the “CEO” part of OceanGate were not true. At a minimum, there appears to have been a major difference of opinion between the founders.
The financial/business timeline leading up to the implosion is an interesting one.
2013: Founders part ways
2013: One founder starts a direct competitor
2016: Chief Pilot wants Titan classified
2018: Chief Pilot fired
2018: Submersible trade group begs OceanGate to have Titan classified
2020: $19 million raised from 22 investors
Before its ill-fated journey in June 2023, Titan made two successful voyages to Titanic in 2021 and 2022. But the industry concerns about the “delamination” or breaking down of the carbon-fiber hull were only exacerbated with each dive. When the Titan wreckage was found 12,500 feet below the surface and about a quarter of a mile from Titanic, the carbon-fiber fuselage imploded because of the enormous pressure at depth. (An implosion happens when something collapses upon itself. Think of crushing a paper cup between your hands.) Remaining intact were the two end cones of the sub. Both were constructed not of carbon fiber, but of titanium.
We do not yet know the full story of OceanGate and Titan. Investigations may not be completed until late 2024 or sometime in 2025. But the facts support a quick and dirty approach taken by OceanGate when compared with basic industry safety standards, as well as common sense. Additionally, OceanGate registered its vessels outside the U.S., allowing it to skirt the additional slow-downs and costs of the U.S. legal system.
When viewing the totality of the shortcuts and quick fixes used by OceanGate, it’s easy to understand how the title of Ben Taub’s excellent article in the New Yorker says it all about Titan, “An Accident Waiting to Happen.”
Using Quick and Dirty Thinking is not advisable when making a Tectonic Decision.
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