"Titanic" director James Cameron, who has explored the ship's wreckage site himself, called the implosion of a submersible that vanished on a Titanic tour Su...

Film director James Cameron has expertise in designing and testing these submersibles, and he has many criticisms of the design of the sub that imploded, and of the hubris of the CEO who ignored repeated safety warnings from the diving community. He also mentions that the sub seems to have been attempting to resurface when it imploded, suggesting that they were aware the hull was starting to fail.

  • Epilektoi_Hoplitai@lemmy.ca
    59·
    2 years ago

    Hubris is the word.

    The CEO Stockton Rush, just off the top of my head:

    • Fired his own director of marine operations for formally reporting “numerous issues that posed serious safety concerns". These included that the viewport was only rated to 1,300 meters, the carbon fiber hull had flaws which gave it the potential to fail, and that the hull integrity monitoring systems installed in response “might only provide ‘milliseconds’ of warning before a catastrophic implosion”.
    • Refused to submit to an industry certification process for the sub, despite being warned in an open letter with dozens of signatories that failing to do so risked “negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic)”.
    • Denounced the laws regulating submarine tourism as having “needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation”.
    • floofloof@lemmy.caOP
      34·
      2 years ago

      Denounced the laws regulating submarine tourism as having “needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation”.

      He was a consistent Republican donor, apparently, so probably a devotee of the “regulations are holding back innovation” religion. In other words, “I want to cut costs and make more profit, so I’d rather risk people’s lives than spend money to protect them.”

    • RustledTeapot@kbin.social
      22·
      2 years ago

      This trend of companies firing the person responsible for giving safety warnings is really troubling, and I’m concerned that our whole planet is going to go down like that someday.

        • blivet@kbin.social
          11·
          2 years ago

          “The planet,” in terms of a rock orbiting the Sun, sure, but we are killing an awful lot of flora and fauna that would be doing fine if we weren’t around to fuck things up.

          • TheCalzoneMan@beehaw.org
            6·
            2 years ago

            Life always finds a way. At least until the moon has drifted so far from our orbit that our atmosphere is no longer sustainable and the oceans boil off the surface of the planet.

            • blivet@kbin.social
              2·
              1 year ago

              Life always finds a way.

              Are you sure? Even if it’s true, I like the life forms we’ve got right now an awful lot, and they don’t deserve what we’re doing to them.

            • arefx@lemmy.ml
              1·
              1 year ago

              Just nudge the moon back like that asteroid we slammed the thing into.

          • laird_dave@feddit.de
            1·
            1 year ago

            Yes and the 6th mass extinction event is well underway. Still, the planet’s life forms bounced back before and will do so again, I guess.

    • CoderKat@kbin.social
      18·
      2 years ago

      needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation

      Gosh, I can’t imagine something as minor as passenger safety being important… Seriously, is this guy real or is it three psychopaths in a trenchcoat?

    • sensibilidades@kbin.social
      9·
      2 years ago

      "might only provide ‘milliseconds’

      “Don’t give me your mumbo-jumbo Mister Scientist - will the alarm go off or not?!”