Page 25 - Pierce County Lawyer - January February 2024

Titan was steered by a game controller. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
Breaking The Rules
Titan’s hull was an 8.33 foot long, five foot diameter, carbon-fiber-wound cylinder with five inch thick walls. American Photo Archive / Alamy Stock Photo.
Deep-sea vehicles have always been made of steel and titanium for maximum strength under pressure. How these metals perform and fail under pressure has been exhaustively researched, studied, and tested.
Carbon fiber is lighter, stronger,
and better than steel or titanium in
many applications, but not deep sea submersibles. As explained by Will Kohnen, Chair of the Marine Technology Society’s Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee, carbon fiber “is great under tension (stretching) but not compression (squeezing). You can use a rope to pull
a car. But try pushing a car with that rope.”3
Rush admitted that colleagues and experts warned him repeatedly not to build a deep sea submersible out of carbon fiber, but he did it anyway. In his view, in order to innovate you must be willing to “break the rules.” Regulators, and the old guard, exaggerated risks and overengineered everything to an “obscene degree.” Carbon fiber is as strong as steel or titanium but much lighter and more buoyant, which saves money on ballast.4
The editor-in-chief of Travel Weekly, Arnie Weissmann, claims that Rush told him days before the fatal expedition
3 Casey, S. (August 17, 2023). The Titan submers- ible disaster was years in the making, new details reveal. Vanity Fair.
4 Titan used weights and sandbags as ballast to descend. The ballast was dropped to ascend.
that he bought the carbon fiber “at
a big discount” because “it was past
its shelf life use in planes.”5 When Weissman asked whether he had any concerns about that, Rush replied, “no it is perfectly fine. Having all these certifications for airplanes is one thing, but the carbon fiber was perfectly sound.”6
Tour The Titanic
“Explore the world’s most famous shipwreck. You can follow in Jacques Cousteau’s footsteps and become an underwater explorer. This is your chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary. Explore the earth’s last frontier. Be amazed by the bizarre creatures of the deep sea become one of the few to see the Titanic wreck site with your own eyes.” —OceanGate
Engraving by Willy Stöwer (colorized). Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner which hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, on her first voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. The ship snapped in two pieces which fell to the silty bottom of the North Atlantic at a depth of 12,500 feet or 3,800 meters.
In 1985 the wreckage and debris field were located by a remote controlled submersible operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Since then a few hundred people, scientists and wealthy adventurers, have taken the plunge in submersibles to study, survey and map the site.7 Every one of these expeditions used “classed” steel
5 Rogers, J. (July 1, 2023). I gave up my seat on Titanic sub. TCI Magazine.
6 Id.
7 James Cameron, director of the 1997 blockbuster, Titanic, has visited the wreck site thirteen times.
and titanium submersibles designed, manufactured, and certified to exacting standards and there had never been a fatal accident until Titan in 2023.
From the beginning, Rush figured tours to the Titanic would be a profitable niche market. When asked why, he said: “people are so enthralled with Titanic. I read an article that said there are three words in the English language that are known throughout the planet. And that’s ‘Coca-Cola,’ ‘God,’ and ‘Titanic.’”
Titanic’s bow through Titan's viewport.
OceanGate’s depiction of Titan in action.
Jay Bloom, who came within a whisker of taking Titan’s last trip, has publicly discussed Rush’s personality and sales pitch. While trying to persuade Bloom to sign up with his son for the next trip to Titanic, Rush gave assurances that riding in Titan was safer than flying in a helicopter, scuba diving, or crossing the street.
Bloom describes Rush as “a good guy, great heart, really believed in what he was doing and saying. But he did not want to hear anything that conflicted with his world view, and he would just dismiss it.”8 As shown in text messages, Rush continued to press, but Bloom
Continued on next page.
8
Young, S. (June 26, 2023). Titan family tragedy averted due to son’s warnings about safety of sub. People.
January/February 2024 | PIERCE COUNTY LAWYER 25