K2 is attempted by experts using their own gear under their own power. They know exactly what risks they are taking.
This submersible was basically a rollercoaster ride that wasn't up to spec. If a participant doesn't need to know or do anything on a trip, they are going for a ride not an adventure, and they aren't expected to be safety experts in the field.
Also one of the passengers was a teenager who was concerned about going, but went along to make his dad happy. Hardly a clear eyed risk taker who was fine with the risk.
1000% this. A previous participant Mike Reiss, former Simpsons producer, did a interview a few days ago where he all but compared himself to one of the astronauts on the Mercury missions. It was nearly borderline delusional.
He even said he was well aware of the risks involved and kissed his wife goodbye not knowing if he would see her again. Just because something is insanely dangerous doesn't make you an explorer, and you're not performing in any research capacity, you're a former writer for the Simpsons and this is TOURISM. Get some perspective.
> There's no absolutely safe way to dive that deep
That's true, but there are (substantially) safer ways. This design should have never been used for passengers.
I really draw the line there: innovators are free to do whatever the hell they want to do with their own lives and if a professional who really understand the risks decides that they want to take those risks they should be free to do so.
But to charge passengers for a ride requires a completely different attitude towards safety. No matter what you are going to write on your consent forms. Besides being unable to properly evaluate the risks inherent in your design they will be subject to all kinds of pressure to participate which will reduce their ability to properly assess the risks.
This is why we have different classes of aircraft, and why depending on your goals you will be assessed differently by the authorities if you intend to operate one for ferrying (paying) passengers.
> free to do whatever the hell they want to do with their own lives
Is that entirely true? In a scenario like this they're going to incur tremendous costs borne by others in search and recovery, and potentially put rescue personnel in harm's way. Modulo these things being used as useful exercise and training for the military.
> This design should have never been used for passengers.
That's cheap talk. As soon as there is some major accident, some people creep up to declare: it was obvious all along. Of course it wasn't quite obvious enough for them to actually make that declaration in advance.
> In the end all participants consented and were aware of the risks.
They consented, but were they aware of the actual risks? That seems unclear at best, given the active concealment of safety issues and the misleading marketing that has been cited in various reports.
> There’s no absolutely safe way to dive that deep
Nothing is absolutely safe, but deep submersion diving isn’t a new field, there are established safety standards and practices (including in the latter third-party audits to confirm compliance to the former) and OceanGate uniquely among operators of manned vehicles refused to conform to either (though it marketed its subs as exceeding the standards it decided not to be certified against). And its also unique in experiencing a manned disaster.
Now, we aren’t at the point where it can conclusively be shown that those two unique features are directly connected (and practical issues with investigating a disaster at this depth may not make that practical any time soon), but, its not unreasonable to suspect that they are.
> > Now, we aren’t at the point where it can conclusively be shown that those two unique features are directly connected
> I would take that bet.
And I would agree that that is where the smart money is, I’m just acknowledging that the actual specific cause of the disaster and any connection to specific cut safety corners remains unknown.
There are a lot of tell tales in how the debris field is structured.
The fact that the two end bells are separated from the central cylinder and that the cylinder itself can't be located pretty much singles out the carbon fiber structure. The company was aware of problems with previous iterations of the hull of Titan which may have been rebuilt at least once and possibly more than once (this is a bit unclear in what I've been able to dig up about it so far). If the window blew first I would expect things to look a bit different.
I wonder to what extent gross negligence trumps the language in the consent waiver.
