The Grand Banks of Newfoundland Strikes Again
ArtAngel
Posts: 1,695
The Grand Banks of Newfoundland stirkes again. Growing up in Newfoundland could be a blessing or a curse, depending on the weather, the ocean and a few other things. Many have fallen victim to the unforgiving Grand Banks and the area just south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The Titanic, my grandfather at age 34, (body never recovered), some other relatives, friends and next-door neighbors that worked on the Ocean Ranger, and now the Titan submersible with relatives from Britain, Pakistan and United States praying for the safe return of their loved ones.
Edit to add link for various reporting agencies and live tracker.
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The Grand Banks were also known for its Cod fisheries, until the stocks were depleted by over fishing by foreign fisheries from Russia, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, the USA and Japan. Canadians be too nice.
Let's hope the submersible just has a bad communication issue, though the news reposrts have used the term catastrophic failure as a possiblitiy. It is the North Atlantic, and that's a rough part of ocean even on a calm day.
With some of the stuff that's coming out about the craft itself, I'm not so sure it was the Grand Banks that was to blame... I don't think I'd be too keen to be bolted inside of a submersible with no way of getting out if it didn't surface near the mothership... also, it being steered by a $30 Logitech controller, kinda might have been a red flag...
I'd object to calling any tourist vessel anything close to "Titanic" to begin with.
Also, maybe a craft designed to operate in extreme conditions should not be streamlined with costs of operating it as a primary concern. There's a good reason why those deep diving vehicles usually are built like a brick house at the expense of, well, expenses.
Especially when one considers the other 'link' between Titan and Titanic.
Some of the carelessness that's been reported upon in recent days reminds me of the less-than-cautious approach to Everest ascents prior to that terrible summit disaster in 1996.
or putting passengers on the Space Shuttle, or various things that happen in Antarctica. Extreme environments should not be tourist destinations.
We have no idea what actually happened, e.g. an overly hungry giant squid (bad luck). I'm sure the involved people knew the specific risks, including probabilites for recovery, except maybe for the giant squid.
Best case: Communication failure, auto ascend and/or maybe another of the 7 systems to ascend, get found in time.
Other cases: more than a tight spot.
Well they have 30 hours of air left at the time of this post, hope they're found.
I totally agree with this but as governments around the world and their agencies have stepped back from fully funding these explorations (in space particularly), preferring a private/public partnership with companies, this is inevitable. The genuine researchers get their work paid for by the wealthy tourists. In many cases there is no other funding available. Do you ban this kind of hybrid research/tourism operation on safety grounds, denying scientists the opportunity to further their work, or do you permit it and accept that people who signed a safety waiver, possibly without understanding the technicalities and difficulties of the operation they are involved in, will inevitably die?
It would be a tough call to ban an individual's right to choose although we do this regularly - using seat belts in cars is not down to our personal choice!
What could be looked at is how safe these operations actually are. This is not a particularly encouraging article:
https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-faced-lawsuit-depths-safely-travel-oceangate
Hopefully this team is bobbing about on or near the surface somewhere in the Atlantic and they'll be found. There are no reports yet of any country's military acoustic sensors hearing the sounds of a submarine breaking up so maybe this will end happily.
This is why I think it won't:
https://twitter.com/FridaGhitis/status/1671120043126423553?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1671120043126423553|twgr^f6d28e2c53b6f305aafa03fe0e8c7080421ea62c|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://newrepublic.com/article/173808/media-cares-titanic-sub-drowned-migrants
Now go and look up the Amazon reviews of the game console controller they use to operate this vehicle...
You couldn't make this stuff up.
I can remember severe lightning storms, winter storms and the movie the Perfect Storm was a true depiction of storms along the Atlantic coast and about the fate of the Andrea Gail. But in between harsh weather, we had gorgeous weather too. But even on the best day, I would find the Titan a tad too claustrophobic.
You are so right on all counts. Canadians are too nice. Especially Newfoundlanders ;). That's why when the world ends, Newfies get an extra half hour ;). My grandfather drowned fishing the Grand Banks as did many others. Can you imagine being in a fishing boat looking up at a wave the height of a skyscraper? The two biggest resourses of the Grand Banks were fish and the oil drilling fields (Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose) all located in the Grand Banks. Than came the fluorspar mines (yikes). That was terrible. I had my first son delivered by Dr Brian Hollywood, the medical examiner for the provincial department of Mines,and the U.S. Memorial Hospital was jam-packed with dying miners. Both the ocean and the land made far too many widows.
Ah, all of this is making me wax philosphic. In a previous job, I did a small project with Millie Hughes-Fulford. I met her first when she came to our lab and gave a talk about her research and flying on the space shuttle (the flight before the Challenger). At this point, a manned crew to mars would not be survivable; between the cancers and infection from weightless induced immunosuppresion, calcium loss and muscle wasting, as well as a plephora of other effects, it would be a oneway trip. I remember her discussing how uncomfortable outer space is: endless congestion, noise, lack of sleep, digestive issues, nausea, claustrophibic spaces, smelliness etc... She seemed larger than life to me. I think explorers are rather unique people and it is hard for me, a non risk taker, to appreciate how they are driven.
Let alone mass graves like this one.
This one is depressive, but unfortunately very likely. This Youtuber is a former submariner and an expert on the topic. He's not having much hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dka29FSZac
100%
Yes, but generally such tourism is only within the reach of very, very, very wealthy individuals... Individuals who have access to all sorts of luxuries and amusement that ordinary, non-very, very, very wealthy individuals don't have access to... being wealthy on that scale gets boring after a while and if someone who has such levels of expendable resources is bored, why shouldn't they be allowed give their money to people willing to provide them with access to all sorts of memorable experiences that nobody else can afford... think of how boring it would be if a bunch of billionaires were sitting around the caviar table at the billionaire buffet (I clearly have no idea what billionaire parties are like) and all they had to brag about was vacationing at Disneyland or Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Resort and Parrotorium.
Think of how boring those stories would be... and worse yet, they would be around filthy ordinary people and might actually touch one.
Yuk...
Limiting access to such tourism is also against the rules of nature... billionaires by their own admission and narration are the top of the food chain... like a lion, wolf or saber-tooth penguin, as they'll often equate themselves to... if there are too many lions in nature and one of them wants to go down inside the rim of a volcano, the antelope and zebras don't go rushing off to stop him, they give him a hooves-up and say "go fer' it broseph"... the other lions don't intervene either, because if he gets fricasseed by the lava, not only will there be more zebra chops for them, but in the event he doesn't fry, there'll be an interesting tale to be told around the lemur table at the lion buffet (I clearly have no idea what lion parties are like)...
Telling rich people they can't go bungee jumping into volcanos or camping on the moon in flimsy untested spacecraft isn't natural... especially since regular people are subject to all sorts of unsafe occupations and environments that we happily experience entirely for free or practically no pay at all... much of that is provided entirely and magnanimously by the grace of those same very wealthy people... why should ordinary people have all the fun?.. While the people who provide us with such opportunities to risk life and limb, sit on the sidelines eating caviar and dreaming of the joys of explosive decompression, oxygen narcosis or hypothermia.
I believe it's not right to limit these individuals merely to debaucherous activities on private islands or midnight bird mask "parties" in the catacombs of ancient monasteries... I believe we should actually be encouraging them to engage in such dangerous adventures... daring them to push the envelope and outdo each other in risky, potentially deadly adventures.
If anything we should limit, is the cost of rescuing such adventurers... I believe if the antelope are required to go look for a lion trapped in a volcano, the lion should have to compensate them... which is awkward in the lion analogy because their currency is pretty much antelope meat based, but in the human context, I believe it's only fair the wealthy adventurers pay for or have a fund set up to pay for any potential rescue or search efforts.
Search and Rescue helicopters don't run on sunshine and good vibes, and rescuers often have to risk their lives to recover these daring folks from the edge of doom... and since the cost of such endeavors is often quite high and experienced rescuers are a highly trained and uniquely skilled group (more or less the same argument used as to why "I get a billion dollar salary and you don't") and if one considers that a bored individual is willing to spend millions of dollars to put themselves in harms way, they should be willing to pay millions more to be rescued from the grim reaper's icy embrace.
Ask any lion or saber-tooth penguin and they'll agree... it's how nature works.... In the very least the rest of us antelopes learn a valuable lesson about what not to do when you are bored.
So yes, I believe such tourism should not only be allowed, it should be encouraged... and it's not just because I really want to see an actual Jurassic Park being built in hopes that at some point I might be able to own a generic brand knockoff Velociraptor, but because I'm a petty bastard who thinks if you are bored enough to do something so unnecessary... fine, do it, I just don't wanna pay the bill for it.
Billionaire Funded Rescue Fund, a top-down money shower.
Private luxury tours of Eastern Ukraine available now.
Boy did Richard Haseltine call that one right with the space shuttle reference and thank you @PixelSploiting for sharing the link. Aaron's expertise is unquestionable. Watched the entire video. Absolutely chilling.
Edit: Several media sources are saying noises were heard which diverted the search direction. Also reaching the depth is near impossible. About the only thing capible of reaching those depths is the vertical diving submarine James Cameron used to reach 35k feet in the Pacific's Marina Trench. The Atlantic's Grand Banks is like Newfoundland terrain, very rugged. When I ran away from my first foster home I ran to Signal Hill. That 'hill', from the ocean it is higher than the Capitol Gate Tower in Abu Dubai and just 30 feet shorter than the Olympic Stadium in Canada and the San Jacinto Monument in Texas. My point is the Grand Banks has hills and valleys (trenches) too and the submersible is small enough (22 feet) to drift into crevices that the Titanic (883 feet) couldn't, even while cracked into two pieces, located 2000 feet apart.
I cant help but think how irresponsible the tour company is to not have a ship follow along on the surface for the whole length of the tour......with tracking equipment and rescue procedures in place.
I'm a great believer in cables myself. Big thick cables to attach pods to craft.
Yeah, "irresponsible" is the word that came to my mind. Kludgy equipment, many single-point failure modes, and not using the "buddy-system" when diving.
Had they ever made this trip before?
With quarter million dollar ticket prices, the owner might have thought they were heading for the "Sea of Green", but may have ended up in the "Sea of Monsters".
Either that or they found the "Sea of Holes" and fell through to Pepperland.
In which case, thanks to the SPLHC Band, back in 1967, there are no Blue Meanies to have to deal with anymore. But, in any case, I don't expect that the Titanic tourists will be coming back. 
I am glad others can at least share their views on this
I do in spite of mine hope they survive, I just have no sympathy for them
I've heard that it had been supposed to be a seven hour dive. Assuming currents, there may be quite some search area resulting. Obviously there is a few (capable!) ships running search patterns in parallel, right now.
I did some reading and video watching yesterday to understand better the technology involved (I already knew a lot about how Sudmersibles/DSVs work and how they are different from submarines)
Oceangate says they made seven dives on the Titanic last year with this craft.
A better informed poster says 3 over 3 years
The comm gear on the Titan was far inferior to Alvin and comprable vessels, and according to accounts it was common to loose contact with Titan. This is probably why the support ship did not call a possible emergency until about 12 hours after they launched and about two hours later they declared them overdue and missing.
It's a possibility that the submersible did emergency resurfacing which is why banging noises attributed to the craft come from a listening buoy (as those are better suited for picking up surface or near-surface sounds).
If this is the case then the race against the clock would be to find them and to open the hatch. Which of course shouldn't be necessary if not for the hatch being just a bolted on cupola.
Hopefully they will be found alive.
If the submersible already imploded, at their dive depth this happens so fast no one would live long enough to feel anything.
In case they were to run out of air, well, there's this consolation of death from CO2 being painless. People fall asleep and never wake up.
The ship is the final resting place for so many. Tombs, graveyards, cemeteries are sacred ground in many cultures. My first reaction was something like, "Tourist expeditions to Titanic are wrong-Wrong-WRONG because of those entombed in the ship. There's no recreational diving at the Pearl Harbor Memorial!"
The sub disappearance is a sad, sad situation regardless. After this long I doubt there will be any good news and certainly no survivors. (I pray to be proven wrong.) I fear nothing, or only a few bits will ever be found.
But tourists do visit the Pere Lachaise or Highgate Cemeteries.
+1
The Titan did some testing off the Bahama's but only succeeded in 3 real expeditions to the Titanic. 2021 2022 and 2023. They planned a bunch for 2023 but only managed this fatal trip. In 2021 (the first mission) Arthur Lobibl, a German explorer who paid just over 100k, was accompanied by Stockton Rush (CEO and current passenger ) and Paul-Henry Nargeolet (French explorer and current passenger). The first sub for the expedition failed to work. The 2nd had to be abandoned at 5200 feet or near a mile in. The third try succeeded after they zipped tied a detached stabilization tube bracket back on (it fell off). The stabilization tube keeps the sub balanced during decent.
In 2022 the thrusters were installed backwards and to avoid spinning across the ocean floor they had to position the game controller sideways or backwards or some weird way, to achieve navigation.
2023 . . . I suspect they are entangled in a net (or crevice, or debris). Back in the hay-days of fishing, every year 150 humpbacks whales became entangled in nets. A humpback is double the size (40-50 ft.) of the 22-ft Titan and weighs (35 tons) 15 more than the 20-ton Titan. Nothing else makes much sense considering the hooks (dissolvable) that hold the sandbags should have dissolved long ago, released the bags, causing the Titan to surface. The hooks dissolve over time. No human or mechanical interaction is required. There are other emergency remedies to resurface (ballast balloon etc.) but I believe these require power or man-power.
Some speculate they could be floating on the surface now but the white sub could be camouflaged by the six foot white caps.
Coast Guard press conference...
Looks like it's been a catastrophic event (at the end of whatever lead to it).
Very sad. I know it was their own decision, but I do feel very sorry for them.
:-( News not good.
https://www.youtube.com/live/4Ac1FHMIsJE?feature=share
At least an implosion is instantaneous. Happens faster than the human brain can detect or react to it.