An Actual Engineer Explains the Oceangate Incident
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- Опубліковано 6 лис 2024
- How exactly did Oceangate kill 5 people?
Watch the Uncut version here - • An actual engineer exp...
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Outro - Infinity by LEMMiNO
If that guy was a Canadian engineer he would have posthumously lost his ring. Fun fact, the provincial chapter of my Engineering society puts out a monthly newsletter which includes the names and offences of all the engineers who lost their license to work as an engineer.
The Great Book of Grudges
The wall of shame
@@darthplagueis13 Canadians and dwarves, never letting go shit and always getting payback
Yeah, if this was taking place in Europe, this man would have been arrested long before the ocean gate sub would have taken off. Common US L
@@RetroRadianceLight Operating this sub was illegal in the US too. Rush was operating in international waters, where no regulatory authority has jurisdiction. What exactly was the US supposed to do about it? Unless you're suggesting they should claim legal jurisdiction over most of the planet?
'they got their carbon fibre from BOEING' 'AGHHHH!!!'
Which was expired.
Yeah, even modern Boeing had the good sense not to use this material.
[Insert Metal Gear Solid "!" alert sound]
@@bthsr7113 "Oceangate won a corner-cutting competition with Boeing and their CEO was dumb enough to use his own product" is this whole incident in a nutshell.
Boeing and other plane manufacturers us carbon fiber.
Like the video states, carbon fiber has it's uses, except submarines isn't one of them.
> install a system that listens for subtle sounds of failure
> ignore obvious sounds of failure reported by everyone on each dive
Task failed successfully.
At the depth where the alerts happened, it was already too late to pay attention to them. They should never have gone down at all.
@@nielsjensen4185 The submarine did several test dives before it attempted to go to the titanic, and during each of those test dives a significant number of carbon fiber strands snapped. They had ample opportunity to metaphorically turn back, but they didn't.
@@webbowser8834 Rush was warned that there was no meaningful way to scan the carbon fiber hull for the level of deterioration, delamination or voids between dives. So even knowing that damage had happened, they had no way to quantify roughly how much damage had occurred. But he didn't care because he had his acoustic alert system that would require the pilot to have the reflexes of a time traveler to have the sub start surfacing before instantaneous fracturing and the millisecond warning it might have given ahead of time.
then again, the acoustic monitoring system was also a Rush innovation, so who knows what it considered a level of cracking that was considered over the threshold and how quickly it would have alerted a human user to react.
he was betting the safety of his untested engineering method with an untested safety system. the most reliably engineered and tested piece of tech was probably the wireless controller.
it sounds more and more like the dude is just suicidal
I think this happened on the previous sub they had made, Cyclops 1. This one did end up developing a crack and was retired. The one that went down was Cyclops 2, later renamed Titan.
I don’t remember who originally said it, but I remember a quote that went something like, “if I didn’t respect him in life, I won’t pretend to respect him now that he’s dead”, and I think that’s a better policy than only speaking positively about the dead.
Yeah. My mother was an abusive alcoholic in life and she didn't magically not do all those horrible things to me just because she drank herself to death.
Being dead doesn't instantly turn an a****** into a saint
All people are a mix of good and bad. You can morn the loss of a human life but still condemn him and not have sympathy for how it happened. Both are possible. The only one I feel sympathy for was the kid who didn't want to go...
It is important though that we call things how they are more often in this world. Problems can't be fixed if they are never identified properly first.
“OceanGate says they bought their carbon fiber from Boeing”
“FUCK!”
Not only from Boeing...
Secondhand / used / discarded / cut-price CF from Boeing.
What
Could
Possibly
Go
Wro
With a over used date.
This was a crazy series of gross negligence....
Just like your mom having you
This gives me strong _Well There's Your Problem_ energy and I am here for it.
Hello fellow Comrade Activate Windows Logo enjoyer.
Nicely said.
when carbon fiber structures make popping sounds, it means they are permanently losing strength and rigidity, the moment the sounds started it meant that less and less carbon fiber was between the water and the occupants
don't build submarines out of rope and craft glue
*submersible, not submarine.
@@laura121684
What’s the main difference?
This is a very different conclusion than I heard from Thunderfoot and Scott Manley here on YT. They said it was the glue seal holding the titanium end to the carbon fiber that failed. I don’t know who to believe.
The US Navy made a sub out of carbon fiber. I believe that’s what inspired Rush.
@@georgewashington2930 A submarine can leave and return to port on its own, while a submersible requires a support ship to launch and recover it. Submersibles are also generally smaller and less complex than submarines and are only designed for short-term dives.
It sounded bad before. Now it sounds even worse.
Been listening to the USCG hearing in September, it got worse still.
hearing rush's quotes is physically painful for me, and i dropped out of college in ME. i imagine any actual engineer looking into this stuff would turn inside out.
It’s just a pitch perfect illustration of everything engineering shouldn’t be. Although I indeed up in another industry, I learned how I think about problems as from Aerospace engineering undergrad, which came with the bonus of structural design concepts plus designing and personally helping lay up parts using steel, titanium and both pre-preg and dry carbon fiber for a Formua SAE race car body (college level competition so nothing crazy but great experience). Every time I hear a new detail about this crazyness it hurts my brain something fierce. Plus the ethics of safety in engineering.
cave johnson ahh quotes
not to mention, the sheer irony. thouse "Industry players" are ex-goverment engineers, their entire job was pushing the boundary of what was possible for subs inorder to make the stealthiest killing machine possible.
@@ehansultani think even cave johnson would object to some of these
I remember a quote from a safety inspector I met. "Remember that safety rules are written in the blood of those who came before you."
I have heard of the iron ring story, also about the theoretical bullshitting around on paper and small scale tests for fun is something that you can do a lot of as an engineer, after witnessing this extremely frequently from peers who are engineers, but they are locked in the moment they’re given an actual job to do. Know what’s bullshitting and know what’s real, if you mix them up, you get this.
As much as I loved the old funny stickfigure Discord pfp style, the rise in quality is pretty insane!
@@Crybaton We're almost a real show!
@@sirswagacademyalmost
A month after the sub imploded my engineering professor used an animation of it imploding in our first class of the semester
I watched a video on the sub being made. It showed the (cylindrical, carbon-fibre) mid-body being joined to the (hemispherical, titanium) end caps. So the weakest point, the sphere-to-cylinder transition was also a joint between dis-similar materials. I immediately thought 'this is bad'. But then they showed the join being done. With glue, by hand, on an open warehouse floor. Nothing to make sure the joint was even, nothing to prevent dust and bugs flying into the glue. No pressure or autoclaving while the glue was setting. I'm not a structural engineer and even I thought it was a bad idea.
Here's another fun fact: Carbon fiber corrodes Titanium. That's why the Ti has to be treated (painted) to avoid corrosion when in contact with carbon fiber.
Glue and not even glitter sparkles. Amatures.
Exactly. This is a very different conclusion than I heard from Thunderfoot and Scott Manley here on YT. They said what you wrote - that it was the glue seal holding the titanium end to the carbon fiber that failed. I don’t know who to believe.
The US Navy made a sub out of carbon fiber. I believe that’s what inspired Rush.
Then there’s the interesting testing that The Hydraulic Press Channel did... that seemed to indicate that it was the CB that failed, but there’s sooo many differences with his test subject and the real thing, that who knows if it was a valid simulation.
I remember seeing somewhere there were doubts the acoustic system would even work. Since carbon fiber isn't one uniform material but instead a bunch of strands glued together people didn't even think the system would detect any cracks that were forming in the first place because the entire scan would likely just be useless noise. At least until something catastrophic had already occurred. It's WILD to hear that apparently, even if the system worked, they had less than half the human reaction time to deal with the issue.
Suicide by negligence and arrogance, and Stockton roped 4 other people into it.
Plus all of the other people who paid deposits to wait in line.
I still feel so bad for the boy
Even if the system worked, Stokton Russ never wanted it to work. It was to give people a false feeling of safety.
They never did calibration tests. They did not compare or analyze changes. No follow-up with inspection.
They ignored signals from the system. So was the carbon fiber hull ever properly inspected during production.
The first hull failed (cracked) what was the reason? What were the actions and changes to the second hull?
By Boeing, every step in production gets checked and reworked if needed.
Ocean Gate did sand, did not properly clean, and just continued building layers.
The titanium was not prepared to bond well with the epoxy. The ring's flanges (especially inside) did not adequately support the carbon hull. That part failed, and seared off when the hull was separated from the ring due to water ingress between the carbon and the titanium.
The glue joint was not only exposed to pressure but due to the hinge for opening and transportation from the port to the titanic site.
The carbon hull was not up to Boeing quality, the orientation of the carbon was about 80% directional and not enough in other orientations.
Due to the cylindrical form, there was a huge longitudinal (water)pressure created by the titanium domes. This Force is not really taken bvy the carbon but by the glue in the carbon matrix. Ocean Gate was waay to optimistic an the forces that there hull could handle.
The more I hear about Stockton, the more I despise the man he was. During the recent hearings about the travesty that was OceanGate, an experienced submariner he hired to pilot his vessels describes how on one journey, Stockton overrode the decisions of his own expert pilot, seized control of the vessel on a routine dive, proceeded to get stuck, panicked, threw a hissy fit because the experienced pilot warned him that he was not driving the submersible correctly, and then after the experienced pilot extricated the submersible and returned to the surface, he became extremely resentful because everyone congratulated the pilot and took attention away from Stockton.
He sounds like a thoroughly terrible human being, and he got multiple people killed because of his ego.
Iron ring part was a beautiful ending
Stockton Rush was not a billionaire, so needed actual billionaires' money to bankroll his expensive, deep sea submersible dreams, charging them $250k a time for a trip to the legendary 'Titanic' shipwreck.
Rush was so desperate for these hefty cash injections, in the last weeks of his life he offered a super-rich father and son (who had expressed reservations about the 'Titan' sub's safety), a 50% reduction on the price of their tickets. In a BBC interview after the tragedy, the father recalled a phone call from Rush, giving him a sales pitch in which he claimed that a dive on 'Titan' was statistically, quote: "...safer than crossing the road". They declined.
Ironically their places were ultimately taken at full price on the only, and last ever 'Titanic' expedition of 2023 by another father and son, the late Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, two of the five men killed on June 18th.
One pertinent fact not mentioned here, is the 'Titan' submersible's (not 'submarine', as stated in this video) low strike rate re its deep-dives to 'Titanic'. In its short life, the 'Titan' successfully descended 12,500 feet to 'Titanic' and made it back just 13 times out of 90 potential expeditions. The 'Titanic' dives were mostly abandoned at the last minute, due to various technical issues or poor weather.
This means for its main, money-spinning purpose, the 'Titanic' expeditions, the 'Titan' sub had a remarkably poor success rate of less than 15%. Many wealthy, wannabe 'Mission Specialists' (as 'OceanGate' cynically named its paying passengers, to bypass safety laws pertaining to members of the public), only got to experience a short, shallow dive on the 'Titan' sub and a taste of life on board the 'Polar Prince' mother ship, and never got to see the legendary 'Titanic' wreck up close, as they hoped.
Disappointed they may have been, but they'd actually dodged a bullet in a game of aquatic Russian roulette. Because the 'Titan's 'carbon fibre hull meant it was a case of when, not if, disaster struck. Given enough cycles of pressurisation/depressurisation, 'Titan' would, inevitably, implode with total loss of life.
Stockton Rush's hyped pressure sensor alarm system, which he claimed would provide sufficient warning of an underwater failure in the carbon fibre hull to safely abort the dive, was surely the ultimate example of his snake oil salesman patter.
Did he actually believe his own hype? It's doubtful - he was not a stupid man. But he was a narcissistic one, and the confidence and delusion of the most extreme narcs, makes them capable of extraordinary risk-taking. These people think rules don't apply to them, and have a deep-seated sense of immortality.
While death came to the five occupants in a split second, James Cameron believes they had to know there was a serious problem/the hull was breaking down, before that. He said the men may have heard 'terrifying' sounds, as the carbon fibre began to de-laminate. As water entered it, forcing apart the layers of composite, a 'cracking' sound, not the sensor system itself, likely alerted them to the imminent disaster. They probably experienced sickening fear, in their final moments alive.
The official report into the disaster has yet to emerge, but it appears the sub had dropped its ascent weights and was trying to return to the surface to manage an emergency. But of course by that time 'Titan' was almost 2 hours into its descent, had almost reached the ocean floor, and would have taken the same, approx 2 hours, to surface.
Cameron summed up Stockton Rush's 'safety' measures best: "The 'OceanGate' sub had sensors on the inside of the hull, to give them a warning when it was starting to crack. If that's your idea of safety, then you are doing it wrong".
"safer than crossing the road" _really_ depends on which road, and who's doing the crossing
Narcissistic sociopaths are always a danger to those around them.
Some even get elected to run countries because people don't recognize them and their snake oil, because they are able to deliver it with absolute confidence.
They can be extremely dangerous.
@@rogerwilco2Not sure who you're taking about, because we narrowly avoided electing a narcissist when Hillary lost.
@@rm06c lmfaoo, okay dude. I'm sure the neon orange reality TV star hiding classified government documents in his vacation home and forged in the fires of nepotism was a totally normal, trust-worthy guy.
@@SissypheanCatboy He's our only hope for protecting our dogs and cats.
If it wasn't for the USS Yorktown returning again, this incident would have never happened 😢
tell me about it
Lmao
holy shit I didn't realise he was THAT bad
They don't call him Stockton "crushed to a mush" Rush for nothing.
I did, and the worst part is he's not alone
@@williamchamberlain2263 stockton crush
Just like carbon fibre, he was successful but failing right up until he was totally wrong.
@@sperzieb00nStockton CRUSH! PREPARE THYSELF! THY END IS NOW!
I remember talking to a friend about carbon fiber and its use in sports cars and bicycles years before the incident (the former being his hyperfixation, the latter being his actual field of trade). He literally said unlike steel or any other metal, carbon fiber breaks in such a way that you basically "you go from having carbon fiber to not having carbon fiber"
Yep. Couple that with the sheer amount of force at play (meaning there's no small leaks, or minor separations, or really any minor damage that will last long enough for the human brain to process it before it results in death), and I've always been extremely skeptical of the idea that "they knew it was coming and we're trying to ascend when the hull failed"
Like, I know Cameron and Ballard and such all made that claim, but... I have to imagine they're either basing it on what would happen on their vehicles (they may be experts on diving, but they're not materials scientists) or on that fake transcript that was floating about. It's hard to conceive of a failure mode of the pressure vessel itself that would actually have warning time.
Maybe if the sub did have some other technical anomaly I guess - If they lost attitude control or something critical by coincidence on the same trip (they did fail to reach bottom very often, but I don't think it typically lead to dropping ballast and emergency-ascending) it could happen, but I don't really buy that much either.
I can think of one nice thing to say about Crushed, er i mean Mush, I MEAN RUSH! At least he had the bawls to board his death-trap himself instead of hiding behind his money and duping someone else to do it. It's a crime that he did manage to dupe four others to go with him though.
It's crazy how negligent ego driven billionaires can be
By the time they get that rich (and reinforced by the fact of that wealth) they’ve spent a big chunk of life being told how smart they are by new stories/public praise (ie Musk fans)/orbiters that just want a piece of the money printing machine that extreme wealth is. The money rolling in serves as “evidence” it must be right. It’s a perfect storm to train them to think they are better at everything and disconnect them from so much of a normal person’s reality. Past some point of wealth it’s just really hard to actually fail at most things, at least in a way that can’t be papered over with more money.
Then layer on that any amount of empathy or introspection they may have left about the level of disproportionate power and insulation from risk they have in the face of everybody else is a huge motivator to buy into the idea they are so great. Otherwise they might have to admit to themself they don’t (no one does) deserve that elevated status and feel some real guilt.
Stockton Rush was NOT a billionaire, that was part of the problem. He needed actual billionaires' money to bankroll his expensive, deep sea submersible dreams, charging them $250k a time for a trip to Titanic.
Rush was so desperate for these hefty cash injections, he offered a super-rich father and son (who had expressed reservations about the submersible's safety), a 50% reduction on the price of their tickets - but they declined. Their places were ultimately taken at full price on the only, and last ever 'Titanic' expedition of 2023, by another father and son - the late Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, two of the 5 men killed on June 18th.
One pertinent fact not mentioned here, is the 'Titan' submersible's (not 'submarine', as stated in this video) low strike rate. In its short life, the 'Titan' successfully descended 12,500 feet to visit the wreck of the legendary 'Titanic' and made it back, just 13 times out of 90 potential expeditions. The 'Titanic' deep-dives were mostly abandoned at the last minute, due to various technical issues or poor weather.
This means for its main, money-spinning purpose, ie the 'Titanic' expeditions, the 'Titan' sub had a remarkably poor success rate of less than 15%. Many wealthy, wannabe 'Mission Specialists' (as 'OceanGate' named paying passengers, to bypass safety laws pertaining to members of the public), only got to experience a short, shallow trip on the 'Titan' sub and a taste of life on board the 'Polar Prince' mother ship, and never got to see the legendary 'Titanic' wreck as they hoped. But they dodged a game of underwater Russian roulette. Because the carbon fibre craft meant it was a case of when, not if, disaster struck. Given enough cycles of pressurisation, 'Titan' would, inevitably, implode.
Stockton Rush's hyped alarm/pressure sensor system, which he claimed would provide sufficient warning of an underwater failure in the carbon fibre hull to safely abort, was surely the ultimate example of his snake oil salesman patter. Did he actually believe his own hype? It's doubtful, he was not a stupid man. But he was a narcissistic one, and the confidence and delusion of the most extreme narcs, makes them capable of extraordinary risk-taking. These people think rules don't apply to them - and have a deep-seated sense of immortality.
While death came to the 5 occupants in a split second, James Cameron believes they had to know there was a serious problem/the hull was breaking down, before that. He said the men may have heard 'terrifying' sounds, as the carbon fibre began to de-laminate. As water entered it, forcing apart the layers of composite, a 'cracking' sound, not the sensor system itself, likely alerted them to the imminent disaster, and they probably experienced fear in their final moments alive.
The official report into the disaster has yet to emerge, but it appears the sub had dropped its ascent weights and was trying to return to the surface to manage an emergency. But of course by that time 'Titan' was almost 2 hours into its descent, had almost reached the ocean floor, and would have taken the same, approx 2 hours, to surface.
Cameron summed up Stockton Rush's 'safety' measures best: "The 'OceanGate' sub had sensors on the inside of the hull to give them a warning when it was starting to crack. If that's your idea of safety, then you are doing it wrong".
@RocketSurgn_ Except SpaceX actually has an excellent safety record when it comes to manned spaceflight. They test everything extensively to find out what can go wrong _before_ ever putting people on board.
Contrast that with Boeing Starliner, where it's safety is so in doubt that NASA intends to use a SpaceX Dragon to bring its crew back to Earth.
Or the NASA Space Transportation System (AKA Shuttle) which was entirely incapable of aborting through much of its ascent, and the side-mounted orbiter was an inherently dangerous design when combined with the insulation foam on the external fuel tank.
The Challenger disaster wasn't a design issue but a management one. Despite being a government organisation, not a billionaire owned corporation, they were willing to put astronauts' lives in danger simply to keep a schedule.
@ReddwarfIV i like how you went above and beyond with your demonstration of being an orbiter. The guy barely mentioned musk and you needed to give 3 paragraphs to defend your blorbo.
I like how Stockton was so proud of all the aeronautical engineers working on his sub...apparently while never, ever noticing a submarine isn't an airplane.
*submersible.
"The CEO of oceangate, Stockton Crush - ah, Rush - ..."
Okay, so now I need a certified psychologist to tell me just what kind of wires in Stockton Rush’s head were malfunctioning to make him that delusional.
It's money, it's always money.
As an armchair psychologist: Narcissistic Personality Disorder seems right up his alley. The "Look at me! I'm so different! I'm such a rebel!" nature of his statements and his casual disregard for the well-being of others in achieving that goal scream NPD at me. I'm sure there's some other stuff mixed in there but that's what jumps out immediately.
I'd also love to hear a professional's assessment though.
Rich Person Hubris
@@mawnkeyabsolutely...having grown up with one as a father, Rush sure ticks all the boxes to me.
“You should only speak good of the ded. Stockton Rush is ded. Good.”
Dude Swag academy going Mia was both un-noticed and desperatly missed from my life
There are reasons why we stress safety so much
I'm not an engineer but i know that safety is important
I do carbon fiber manufacturing. If you had told me the pressures this vessel would have been exposed to I would have told you to find another material to do it with. Simple as that. The CTE of the tube and end caps. The porosity of the fiber. How carbon fails... It's all bad... Then, you have to account for the construction of the tube. I am here to tell you working with carbon fiber is both an art and a science, no two pieces are ever the same, no matter how bad an engineer wants them to be identical. Wrapping that much carbon fiber with no mistakes would be an absolute miracle.
It's amazing that it lasted as many dives as it did.
I understand the focus on the failure of the carbon fibers, but I'm equally appalled at their notion of marrying two different materials, the titanium end caps and the carbon fiber cylinder, without any regard for how differently those two materials compress under extreme pressure and the gaps that could occur at the juncture.
That topic is delved into much greater detail in the uncut version of this story, which is available on our channel!
From testimony on day 1 of the Coastguard inquiry, it may be that this was the mode of failure
Thanks thermite
That's a real touching moment about the story of the iron ring and always having it on your pinky as a symbolic reminder of what happens if you fail
I wasn't exactly sure about this channel until USS Yorktown showed up.
This presentation screams "reading wikipedia at 4am" vibes and I love it.
ham, pepperoni, turkey, provolone cheese, lettuce, onion, tomato, spicy mayo on toasted sourdough bread
only acceptable sub
It is mentioned that titanium and carbon fiber should not be both used at the same time, but no explanation is given. One problem with bonding titanium endcaps to a carbon composite cylinder is that titanium and graphite composite, being different materials, have different mechanical properties. Unless careful steps are taken, the titanium end caps and the carbon fiber cylinder will not have the same elastic qualities, so the endcaps and the cylinder will want to compress by different amounts, as the pressure changes. The material that would compress more, at the joint, increases the load on the material that would compress less. Adding to the troubles, as the diameter of the cylinder decreases under load, the thickness must increase, which applies shear loads on the adhesive.
This is the most likely mode of failure from the testimony we've seen so far. As I recall it, one end ring was cleanly sheered from the glue/carbon, evenly all round, the other was uneven. If the implosion had begun in the fibre in the cylinder itself, it would have been uneven at both rings. IMHO, this also matches the evidence that human remains were found as they would have been 'pushed' towards the opposite hemisphere which remained intact so less 'shredding'. This is conjecture on my part, based on what I've read and seen, and the testimony of the marine contractor to the coastguard inquiry Monday 16th Sep 2024. I'm not stating this as any kind of expert and further evidence may come to light
@@keithposter5543 If what you say is correct them My hypothesis of the titanium ring failing because it was 1/8" X 2" as the supporting edge of the ring. Applied to the tube of carbon fiber. The inches thick of titanium was outside the tube and in no way supporting it structurally. As the cause VS the Carbon Fiber simply failing outright. The edges of the tube were never properly supported. Huge built in weakness ANYONE should have seen.
9:05 "So it could have been a single use submarine."
I mean technically...
Such good editing, nice to see the academy is back up and running
i love the chuckling at 4:46 when the peanut gallery realizes just what's going on with the carbon fiber graph
and i was chuckling right along because HO BOY
An interesting point on the single use sub. Deep flight challenger, the sub built for Fossett to do the challenger deep was built of carbon fibre. He died before the attempt but a few years later Virgin bought it for their deep sea tourism venture.
To their great disappointment their safety experts pointed out the sub could only be used once (as intended) safely due to its carbon fibre construction and they had to write the whole thing off.
I like to think those experts got a pat on the back when the Titan imploded after 13 dives.
Wow I didn't think learning more about it could make it even worse but wouldn't you know.
One thing you learn as an engineering student - if you're paying attention - is that even smart people can be incredibly stupid. Arrogance and overconfidence magnifies human weakness. I've seen plenty of smart engineers let their ego get in the way. The funniest event I've witnessed was when we had a small forklift get off the concrete and sink a small amount (about 1 inch) into some asphalt. The lead engineer at the company I worked for wanted to show off his new Hemi powered Dodge uber truck and convinced himself that he could tow it out of the small hole. Fortunately, his Tim Allen sized ego didn't hurt anyone but itself.
^ There's a reason TTRPGs like D&D usually separate "intelligence" and "wisdom" into two separate stats.
One of the ethics rules for professional engineers (at least in Ontario where I live) is that an engineer cannot misrepresent himself to be an expert in fields where he is not actually an expert. Stockton Rush ignored this rule.
And the customers ignored a much older rule: Caveat Emptor. If you want to know how safe a thing is, you can't ask the guy who's trying to sell you that thing. You need to ask outside experts, and if they had done that, they would have gotten an earful. Salesmen lie, and Stockton Rush was far more of a salesman than an engineer.
“Is this window rated to that depth?”
“Look at how thick it is”
Those little sound bites tell me everything I need to know about Rush.
"we are the safest 5 guys on earth" got me rolling
It's really a story of 1 man's blatant disregard for safety standards getting 4 innocent people killed. His biggest selling point he seemed to love using was that he "MacGyvered" the sub successfully. The sube was more accurately MacGrubbered.
I remember hearing "carbon fiber submarine" for the first time and i was positive someone got something wrong, there was no way. Then ilearned it was true and it was so fundamentally, egregiously stupid I assumed I had to be missing something. Then I learned about Stockton Rush.
The funny thing about that quote from General Macarthur- he ended up getting fired by the Commander in Chief for insubordination, and in military basic training he's used as an example that even the highest ranking officers are still subject to the chain of command. So, he was right, he did end up getting remembered for the rules he broke
Rush had a strong "the rules don't apply to me" vibe, which is something you see in people who cut corners without catastrophe over a period of years. The trap of ignorant experience. Nothing bad has happened yet, therefore nothing bad can happen.
They died so fast that if there is an afterlife one moment they were in the ocean the next they were just in the afterlife doing the John Travolta pulp fiction meme
every industry's safety guidelines are written in blood for a reason. Rush added a new page with his own and five more's.
Ah, the lovely tech culture of basically blind worship of “new” tech. Blockchain will solve every problem, it’s new so much be better”! Carbon Fiber is newer than boring old metal hulls, new and different must mean smarter than boring “experts”. Who listens to experts anyway, who do they think they are? I say that as someone in tech who is a very early adopter and loves trying new concepts, but boy do you need to balance that with understanding the starting point and what limits a given “new idea” will have.
It’s kind of the epitome of tech bro cliché culture (“move fast/break stuff” etc) trying to be applied haphazard to everything like some universal solution. Really, it’s mostly just putting a lot of resources at a problem and making changes based on real world experimentation that can be a great approach (though less !exciting!, !groundbreaking!) if you bother to put enough thought into when and where it makes sense. Breaking stuff is a problem in a lot of fields, but especially where health and safety are involved.
Rush was a wannabe Elon Musk for space, and when Musk and SpaceX saw great success he turned his attention to the abyss of the Ocean. The thing is, Musk had an actual group of engineers who knew what they were doing when he built Tesla and SpaceX. Musk himself made sure to understand basic principles of his products so he wouldn't market himself to the grave like Rush did. A lot of this can be argued ofc, Musk is far from the ideal person for a lot of things but he wasn't naively stupid... At least when he actually gave a crap.
They made a one use submarine and decide to reuse it over and over
All the safety quotes being legit is horrifying. The man legitimately admiring General MacArthur is an amusing thing because MacArthur himself is a wild and crazy military leader. There were moments of him being a good leader. Then you offset those good moments with periods of downright terrible leadership and decision making. Another telling thing is that MacArthur thought a bit too highly of himself.
All nice red flags for this disaster.
Other than his one brilliant moment of using ampib to outflank the Koreans and his treatment of the Japanese (of course he thought he was a god so of course he got on with the Japanese who just had one of their gods demoted.) When did he have any good moments of leadership and decision making? And the amphib would have been the first thought of either a naval or marine officer so not that brilliant by dugout doug.
I disagree with the "if you do something funny, keep it on paper and keep it there". Go ahead and build it, just make sure to test the crap out of it before getting it anywhere near people. Destructive testing is awesome and hella fun when nobody gets hurt.
Can’t wait to see if you revisit this after the inquiry finishes
The Calling of the Ring is a deliberately bizarre ceremony (so everyone who goes through it will remember it) to inculcate a sense of professionalism after a junior engineer did not report seeing a 'necked' tension member, on the false assumption that it was 'so obvious' that someone more senior must have seen it and decided that it was not a problem. He was wrong. No one else had noticed. If the lead engineer had been told, he would have ordered all of the workers off of the bridge. As he was not informed, work continued and the workers were still on the Quebec Bridge, as it collapsed.
The iron for the rings never came from the wrecked bridge; although, the Quebec Bridge disaster was the inspiration. The ceremony was created by Rudyard Kipling, author of "The Jungle Book", at the request of Professor H. E. T. Hautain. Those called to the ring are asked not to perform shoddy work and to never let the shoddy work of others escape comment. They are also called to be aware of three things: The strength of materials, the perversity of inanimate things, and "The Ultimate Breaking Strain" (this refers to the candidate's character, not any structural material). The ceremony includes a Gospel reading, the episode of Jesus visiting with Mary and Martha, and a homily explaining how engineers are the children of Martha, expected to put in all of the effort to keep civilization running, while getting no thanks for everything that they do from the broader populace.
Aren't the rings stainless steel? I know they are in the US.
@@PeteOtton All steel is iron with a small amount of impurities. The exact composition the iron ring varies from batch to batch, as does the method of fabricating the dimples. Some iron rings have machined dimples, and others are hammered into the ring
I worked on the calculations for a nuclear pressure vessel, using a supercomputer. Once completed I gave it to a nuclear physicist to validate my calculations. Screw that up and cites disappear.
Look when I saw the mad cat controller I instantly was like nope
Honestly thought they named it oceangate after the incident, like with watergate lol
"Oceangate-gate"
Some lighting from camper world, a games console controller and some 2nd hand CF. Rush was hoping to get 10,000 dives from 1 vessel, with paying customers thats around 10 billion dollars. I think i can see the motivation here 😂
My confusion on this whole thing is: why innovate? We already know exactly how to build a submersible to get to the bottom of the ocean and exactly what material it needs to be constructed from (titanium I think). So why bother reinventing this particular wheel? It’s like Stockton Rush was trying to answer a question nobody asked.
For the same reason Russian containment rods were tipped with graphite- it's cheaper.
For the same reason we innovate everything; to make it better.
Wow, this looks rad as hell
I really enjoyed the video, especially as a non-engineer. Great stuff sir swag team! :)
It doesn't take an engineer to know this thing went a lot deeper than it ever should have and then imitated a ketchup packet being stepped on.
to be fair to BOEING….all of the problems you have heard about the company’s vehicles were NOT the result of their CARBON FIBER failing.
it’s been mostly manufacturing/assembly issues.
One thing that I think makes the video better is the new information we have that actually indicates the carbon fiber by itself wasn't entirely to blame. Rather it was the entry cap, damage done to the vessel and how it landed show that the vessel crushed inwards from the door down, further military tests indicate that a carbon fiber hull can work but it needs to specifically match the bend and resistance of the end caps. Otherwise the hull can unseat from the titanium and THEN it will implode, so theoretically Stockton could've done it entirely successfully using what he had, he just cheaped out and didn't test to match...
It would be one thing if it was just him in there or an unmanned vehicle
Rush bragged about “breaking rules.” Rules are made for a reason. Break the rules and people die! His hubris and arrogance are unforgivable.
@@Nicksonian some rules may be arbitrary, or be in place for people who don't know better. A better way to go about this would be to show and understanding of the rules and why they exist first, and then demonstrate enough knowledge to bypass those rules after
@@sirswagacademy "Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist." --Pablo Picasso
the fact that the cylindrical tube was made out of a different material than its ends, that expand differently to pressure and temperature changes, to a point where they will no longer connect at the door-between-them, is enough of a suicide-trap-for-sure.
water barely compresses, so deep enough water will go supersonic-speed on any 1-atmosphere low-density air-bubble that it finds, and that instantly kills you on supersonic impact.
it likely did not explode/implode
Every time I hear something new about this whole situation, it makes Rush look worse and worse.
FMA 2003 was the real cameo i wasn't expecting. also, it still slaps twenty years later.
'03 still beats Brotherhood any day of the week and I will die on this hill.
“Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem-neat, plausible, and wrong.”
-H. L. Mencken
Did these people win a Darwin Award? They sure should have.
submersibles like this can be safe and cheap to make but you can only use it for one time dive while it might be a better long term investiment into a steel sub that sure costs more and takes a lot more time to prepare but can do 100x dives safely
Among all the other issues in this death by a thousand cuts scenario, the Titan was stored outside in a parking lot in Nova Scotia. Any water trapped in the carbon fiber pores would be subject to freeze/thaw forces further weakening the CF cylinder.
The Animation and 3D is a beaut!
Just want to note "Actual engineers" worked on this sub, it wasn't just pretenders and college kids. Titles mean nothing, you really need to know the individual. I'm a software engineer for 10 years, I've seen a lot of good and bad engineers both with senior titles and just starting out. There are good and bad doctors too. Being able to memorize, pass tests, and get a degree does not equal real world problem solving effectiveness. Some of the best software engineers I've worked with were self-taught (INCLUDING MYSELF). You want people who CARE about the end result. Who want it to work easily with no issues. Who are detail oriented and know how every piece connects.
Look to people's experience - specifically not time as whatever, but what they built, what they accomplished. I guess I'm coming at this from a hiring perspective.
Who needs safety, we have SCIENCE!
It physically hurts how real that feels in certain “innovation cultures”.
"Science," that doesn't actually follow any scientific methodology.
*"too much money and not enough sense for our own good." That was the issue. If any legitimate scientific research actually was being conducted at that company (which I somehow doubt), that wasn't the cause of the incident.
The iron rings aren’t actually made from the Pont de Québec - either one of them (it collapsed _twice_ before the current version). But the story is there as a reminder of the consequences of poor engineering practice. I mean, I studied in civil, but even I know that the idea of putting fibres in tension like this is flawed to begin with…
On a related note, my cats enjoy scratching themselves on my iron ring. (I’m not an engineer yet, still a candidate to the engineering profession, lest I misrepresent myself)
that ring stuff was crazy
Since he behaved in this insane way, he wasn't actually an engineer. Education does not make an engineer, it's a mind set.
OceanGate already sounds like a scandal lol
I had to google Yorktown since the image next to her was the Essex Class one(much heavier then Yorktown class)
The Yorktown that was less then half of the pressure of where Titanic was is CV-5(Yorktown class)
Incase anyone wants to nerd out and visualize how much pressure is at Titanic using a ship, the pressure is about the same as the tonnage of USS Saratoga CV-3 after her 1944 refit at full load(it's about 2000 tons off, Sara was 49552 tons)
Yes more like this please. Great job Tim
I remember when people were asking when they were going to do a mission to retrieve the bodies.
Lmao WHAT bodies? They were an amorphous ball of meat jam floating above the ocean floor 0.8 seconds after the hull failure
@@ProjectXA3I'd be surprised if they were even ball-shaped at that point. Regardless, it's moreso "patterns of formerly human debris" than "bodies" by a fraction of a second post-implosion.
They stopped being biology and started being physics too fast for anything to be recoverable. Then they were crab food.
This was not the first deep dive of this vessel. It underwent a form of delamination that resulted from the loading and unloading of the carbon fiber cylinder on the half dozen or so deep dives it had made. On the last dive, it failed at a significantly higher depth than the wreck of Titanic, and that was partially the result of the fatigue failure mode working on the carbon fiber cylinder. The safety systems, which included shedding ballast, also failed. The alert from the acoustic system was too late, because if they heard it, the cylinder was already in failure.
Honestly, the guy proved that it worked just never got around to improving it. Hell, if he had committed to trashing the hull after the first dozen deep dives he'd still be giving tours to billionaires.
No engineer worth their sheet would approach an 'explanation' without knowing what the failure point was. No one does. This is just The Narrative repeated yet again.
Dumbass has PragerU and Jordan Peterson in his playlist, I'm gonna go ahead and ignore your opinion, you narcissistic idiot.
Ok so Rush wasn't worth a sheet of used tp, got it.
The other thing - the building of The Titan looked so amateurish. Rubbing down the surfaces to apply the hand-mixed glue with a rag. Not scoring the surface for better adhesion.. Guys on step-ladders with no protocols to prevent contamination. Wasn't what you'd expect a factory making cutting edge deep sea craft to look like. Looked like any light engineering works anywhere. (Probably was.)
Not what I expect in factory making plastic silverware.
Oceangate painted the hull with truck bedliner. If there were cracks in the hull, nobody could see them. Brilliant engineering
cat reaction time is 20-70 milliseconds. With such fast reaction, cats surround (venomous) snakes like the snake is their pet, as they easily evade EVERY attack attempt by any snake.
and the sub still kills them faster than 20 ms.
I find Stockton Rush's name ironic, given he was in such a hurry to get his sub tourism business going.
It still makes me feel sick to think about those poor people's end, even if they didn't feel a thing. Its crazy Rush was willing to use his own cavalier death trap
This is a very different conclusion than I heard from Thunderfoot and Scott Manley here on YT. They said it was the glue seal holding the titanium end to the carbon fiber that failed.
It's good to know that he considered dying to be less of an insult than being responsible for it.
The story of the Québec Bridge material being used to make Iron Rings is an urban legend. Today, the Rings are shiny, new, stainless steel.
So what I'm hearing is that they're lucky they wrung as many trips out of the hull as they did.
Also, one of the most galling things is that in spite of all the shortcuts, the sub tours were running at a net loss.
Also, One use is deliberate when we're talking about narco subs. Use once and abandon or scuttle.
And how deep are narco subs going? A few yards? maybe even 10's of yards? that pressure is nothing compared to the thousands of yards they were attempting.