'In 2018, more than three dozen people, including oceanographers, submersible company executives and deep-sea explorers, warned that they had “unanimous concern” about the craft’s design, and worried that the Titan had not followed standard certification procedures. In a 2019 blog post, the company said that “bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation.” https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/20/us/titanic-missing-submarine/heres-the-latest-on-the-missing-submersible?smid=url-share
Alfred S. McLaren, a retired Navy submariner and president emeritus of the Explorers Club of New York City, agreed. “I’ve had three people ask me about making a dive on it,” he said in reference to the lost submersible. “And I said, ‘Don’t do it.’ I wouldn’t do it in a million years.”
Some experts fear an innovative submersible maker was ‘cutting corners.’
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/20/us/titanic-missing-submarine/some-experts-fear-an-innovative-submersible-maker-was-cutting-corners?smid=url-share #submarine #titanic
Furthermore:::
Stockton Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate Expeditions, was piloting the submersible, according to the company.
The other four occupants are
-Hamish Harding, a British businessman and explorer;
-The British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman;
-Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French maritime expert who has been on over 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site.
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Per Stockton Rush:::::
The missing man was interviewed about his Titan sub on a CBS Sunday Morning featurette last November and cheerily emphasised its “homemade” aspects, also pointing out handles affixed to the ceiling of the craft that he said he had bought from Camper World but denied that the vessel has been “MacGyvered” or “jerry-rigged”.
“I don’t know if I’d use that description of it. But, there are certain things that you want to be buttoned down,” Mr Stock told reporter David Pogue.
.........
“The pressure vessel is not MacGyver at all, because that’s where we worked with Boeing and Nasa and the University of Washington. Everything else can fail, your thrusters can go, your lights can go. You’re still going to be safe.”
Mr Rush was also interviewed by Mr Pogue for the latter’s Unsung Science podcast that same month on which he was asked what he worried about at the depths of the ocean and answered: “What I worry about most are things that will stop me from being able to get to the surface. Overhangs, fish nets, entanglement hazards.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stockton-rush-ceo-of-oceangate-missing-submarine-b2361360.html
