Tuesday, September 17, 2024

THAT REALLY DOESN'T LOOK GOOD

By Bob Walsh


Portraits of the five crew members of the missing OceanGate Titan sub

Inset, from left: Suleman Dawood, Shahzada Dawood, Stockton Rush; Paul-Henry Nargeolet and Hamish Harding were all killed when the Titan submersible imploded.

 

Regular news consumers will remember the destruction of the Ocean Gale Titan submersible about 15 months ago during a dive on the wreck of the Titanic.  All aboard died when the vessel imploded.

The United States Coast Guard just started their hearings on the matter.  (I confess I am not aware of their jurisdiction, but that is another matter.)  Tony Nissan, former chief engineer of the company that operated the Titan, testified that he believed the vessel to be unsafe and refused to dive in her.  He was offered the gig as chief pilot and turned it down.  One of the issues that came up was the fact that the thing was struck by lightning several weeks before the fatal dive.  Apparently that was believed to have had some bad effects to the hull that were not addressed by the operators.  

The hearing has several more days to go.

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