For those who are unaware: A couple billionaires, a pilot, and one of the billionaires’ son are currently stuck inside an extremely tiny sub a couple thousand meters under the sea (inside of the sub with the guys above).
They were supposed to dive down to the titanic, but lost connection about halfway down. They’ve been missing for the past 48 hours, and have 2 days until the oxygen in the sub runs out. Do you think they’ll make it?
I don’t want to dash anyone’s hope; but every day they go without being found, their oxygen and chances of living are dropping dramatically. We’re at the point in time that based on the design of the submersible and its purpose, there is a severely small chance (10% or less) that they will be rescued alive.
As far as the design, craftsmanship, and the parts used on the submersible, there is little doubt that corners were cut. Yes, the tube was made of titanium and might have been jointly designed by MIT / NASA / Boeing, but there is plenty of documentation that outlines the submersible (wholly) was never certified for the Titanic depths. In addition, the use of a non-marine specific controller is just one of many non-standard components the submersible was using.
At the very least, the company was charging 250K per seat on the submersible. For this particular dive that means the company raked in $1 million US dollars and that doesn’t even consider previous expeditions. To charge that amount of money and to shirk safety certifications and marine specific components, there was definitely some negligence going on.