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?
The 5 submariners chances of being rescued are very slim at this point but much much higher than the 500 migrants still missing off the coast of Greece who took to the waters not for a joy ride but to escape war and seek a better life.
No, nor do I think they should be. There will be millions of wasted taxpayer dollars wasted on trying to recover rich people’s dead bodies. They signed a waiver and knew what they were getting into. There’s nothing to be learned from whatever happened, since the company was clearly negligent. Let them rest on the ocean floor beside the other rich assholes.
It’s kinda poetic for them to go down next to the titanic, itself a story of complacency and excess/opulance.
That’s a bit harsh. If there’s anything that works in modern society pretty reliably regardless of status, it’s search and rescue. Sunk subs can also be an environmental hazard.
There is no rescue in this instance, only an expensive recovery. And there are enough environmental hazards in the world at this point, that I don’t think a 5m sub on the sea floor is going to matter much. Most climbers are abandoned to their fate as they made the reckless decision to ascend, just as these people made the reckless decision to descend.
It’s still part of S&R. Lost swimmers, ships, small planes, or just people lost in the woods, there are always attempts for recovery long after any chance of survival is gone.
Yea climbers may be abandoned very high up on Everest, when there’s no safe way to bring them down. But subs, we do look for subs. Let’s not needlessly be dicks about it.
Let’s not needlessly be dicks about it.
You do you. I will be whatever I want about it however.
I agree woth this post. Wealth has nothing to do with this. And if they survive they can easily pay the bill.
Pretty hilarious that you think a billionaire would foot the bill if they are (or their families if they’re not) rescued.
I suspect they imploded.
These super deep subs are traditionally not reused very long, because the stress of the water pressing and then releasing weakens them. The more compression-decompression cycles they take the faster they degrade.
From all the reports, they got a lot of reports of issues that they ignored. I read that one of the reporters who saw it found it to be very jury rigged together. Apparently it was not certified in any way.
Even if they did survive and the ballast worked correctly, they would surface quickly (decompression sickness?) and cannot open the hatch from the inside. The thing doesn’t float above the water, so its going to be a pain to find. Also they didn’t paint it bright orange with blinking lights, its white, gray, and blue.
Overall, a lot of poor decisions and ignoring advice lead to disaster.
Not an expert, but I don’t think the air pressure inside the sub changes, so decompression sickness should be impossible. Don’t quote me on that, though
Just imagine, these idiots spend 250k to sit in a iron tube controlled by a cheap offbrand playstation controller but won’t spend any of their money to improve the world. Only satisfying their own ego and greed. I can’t feel sorry for them, best I can do is hope that they imploded so they didn’t have to suffer too long.
I’m not really in the business of defending billionaires but I think at least one of them, the guy who brought his son, was involved with charities:
"He works with his family’s Dawood Foundation, as well as the SETI Institute - a California-based research organisation which searches for extra-terrestrial life.
“Shahzada is also a supporter of two charities founded by King Charles - the British Asian Trust and the Prince’s Trust International.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65955554
He sounds (sounded) like a good person… I do find it interesting that the other billionaires don’t have any mentions of charitable works in articles I’ve read in them.
Every billionaire uses charities.
They’re a way to exert control over the money that would normally go to taxes, and be up to the government to spend.
It’s not inherently bad, but charity is not quite the saving grace of billionaires that many make it out to be.
I’m not going to diss on Logitech, they make some good reliable controllers. I would place them bottom on the list of things that probably broke.
That being said. I can understand why someone from the outside sees a plastic controller and wonder why they didn’t go with the more expensive plastic controller. But in the end, they both have the same parts. I would also find it VERY strange that there wouldn’t be a backup controller.
Though it is hard to take pity on the situation when one has to consider. That 250k a ticket is more then 20 single mothers working 2 jobs, so they can feed their kids, so this dude can go see the titanic… in person… Because video documentaries of every angle of the titanic in 4k resolution don’t exist in 2023 apparently.
It’s more than a little ironic they [presumably] died in an accident caused by cutting corners on regulations and safety by saying things like “certifications cost too much time and money, we shouldn’t have to train someone just to convince them that this is safe”, as well as doing things like firing safety personnel when they object to the submersible’s worthiness.
I saw someone call it the ‘minimim viable submersible’ and I’ve never heard a better description as someone who spends all day working on minimum-viable-product style projects
💀
You fuckin know it lmao I was just reading on Twitter how they’re sending up a c-130 and some special military submersible to help with the search. Who’s paying for that? 🤷🏻♂️
It’s interesting how just 6 days ago, a boat with 750 people on board, including 100 kids, capsized near Greece, only 104 survived, and it’s less of an issue than those billionaires
I think it’s because the story about a missing submersible is unusual, and moreover, it’s about a rescue attempt. This makes it more interesting than many other, albeit more dreadful, news stories.
750 people drowning is also unusual, and there’s also been rescue attempts.
All these victims have loved ones, and i don’t wish death on anyone, but for the billionaires I find it quite hard to care much.
I still hope they’re saved, though; and if they are I very much hope the experience will have changed them.
That’s just not the same. Drowning is quick and if you don’t save them immediately they’re most likely dead. Slowly suffocating in a sub while the clock ticks and something can be done about it is a different story.
Learn to care.
You’re assuming they’re suffocating, when the smallest fault in the hull’s integrity would make the thing implode, killing them before they realized what was happening.
Like everyone, my ability to care has limits. You can’t worry and care about everything. I’ll give my fucks for those who didn’t grow rich exploiting others, thanks.
750 people drowning is also unusual
It’s terrible but not that unusual.
sure. It has nothing to do with the fact that in one of cases they are 5 billionaires while in the other one they are 750 poor migrants. No, totally not.
Not entirely no, I didn’t see any news outlet leading the story with “5 Billionaires missing after Submersible lost contact”. For quite some time we didn’t even know who was on board. It’s more the fact that boats in the Mediterranean sink all the time, it’s still tragic but we know that that’s an issue we have now (most people unfortunately seem to have decided that they do not care that much). A submersible going missing and the coast guards of 2 countries looking for them, while thei only have air for a couple days, no one knowing where they are and it involving the titanic guarantees clicks, it’s almost like a movie plot. The fact that they are wealthy is certainly not the reason for it though, it’s the circumstances surrounding it, it’s unusual. People also know how ships work and why they capsize, while most people don’t have the slightest idea how deep sea submersibles work.
So yes, the ship capsizing and killing that many people is horrible and should get more attention, especially from the Goverments involved. It’s ridiculous that we let those poor people drown by the thousands and treat the ones who made it like scum. But I’m not convinced the Titanic story got traction BECAUSE the victims have money.
The Greece tragedy is lacking the irony and hubris of this.
I mean, it’s a tourist submersible that was aiming to bring billionaires to view the Titanic wreckage and it likely got wrecked itself. And they named the submersible Titan.
The sub’s company OceanGate was dinged by a former employee for all sorts of safety issues and they fired and sued him. There are also lots of choice quotes from the CEO (who happens to be on the vessel) about moving fast and breaking things, and regulations stifling innovation. So there’s some possible karma involved.
It was an issue for a lot of international organizations, but Greece and EU made themselves look like fools https://vlemmy.net/post/119595
I don’t disagree, but missing sub is an unusual phenomenon and mystery that gets people interested.
I don’t think the billionaires part is all that important, I didn’t know about it until today. The Kursk, the kids trapped in a cave, the miners that have spent months in a mine, those were all news too.
But yea immigrants from war-torn regions - nobody cares unless they have “blond hair and blue eyes”.
If they’re deep down, it’s unlikely. A good outcome would be something failed, but they could get up and are now lost on the surface, but from everything we’ve read about this it doesn’t seem likely either.
I think if someone wants to dive to the wreckage of the Titanic again, they should ask the Russians for the Mir bathyscaphe, which definitely works reliably.
“currently stuck” is a euphemism - they are dead. They are gone.
The cognitive dissonance displayed here is appalling. So many envious and evil fucks showing zero empathy for other humans dying a terrible death just because they have more money. Jesus fuck, people. If your life view makes you that uncaring of other humans then you need to pick a new life view or start getting on submarines yourself. You sit on the internet gleefully relishing in the deaths of others like that makes you more compassionate of poor people somehow?
Gross. You people are gross.
Hundreds of migrants drowned in the Mediterranean like not even more than a few days ago and I’ve seen at least 20x more of this kind of sentiment for a handful of rich dudes that wanted to go visit the titanic in a un-certified pringles can created by a company that recently fired it’s director of marine operations because he wouldn’t sign off on the safety of this thing. Their company website says they are not certified because certification impedes innovation 😵💫
Like I saw on Twitter yesterday these dudes are the deadest that anyone has ever been, whether you cry-yell at people on the internet for not being sufficiently crestfallen or not
It’s amazing how much manufactured empathy you can buy with money
No. Chances are high that that submarine just imploded in a millisecond and they just instantly died. Why else would it stop sending pings and completely dissappear otherwise?
I cant speak for myself but i think communication in general is a very well understood topic. If that fails you can just assume everyone is dead. I am not sure if the banging is real tho or if it was something else
They forgot to charge the pad and didn’t bring the USB cable, so no. They’re doomed, unfortunately.
At this point, no. As I’m writing this comment, they barely have an hour of oxygen left. Yeah, they’re dead for sure.
I think there’s a chance they succumbed to hypothermia long before they ran out of oxygen.
Sadly I don’t think so. This incident was absolutely preventable. Someone warned them about this and they got fired. A makeshift vessel that wasn’t inspected/certified, immersed to almost 3 times the rated depth, controlled by a wireless Logitech gamepad from 2010 with no redundancy and only 96 hours of oxygen. I really really hope for a last minute miracle though…
