Titan sub noise heard on board support ship.

[LittleInch]

Just watched a new documentary by the BBC and others like Discovery so if you're interested look out for it. Implosion: The titanic sub disaster.

Key new part for me is that they released video of the moment a loud "crump" was actually heard on board the support vessel apparently through the hull with Rushs wife Wendy doing the monitoring of the sub and her saying "what was that?". They then got a message from the sub which must have been somehow delayed saying dropped two weights which confused them. It is pretty chilling to listen to alright. That and the fact that they were thought not to be at the ocean floor implies they were getting some warnings.

This is a clip but there are others.

Not much we didn't already know, but they have noted dive 81 (out of 88) where there was a very large bang heard which they reckon was the point at which the hull was on its last legs after a major internal failure.

The Discovery documentary maker back in 2022 was very unimpressed with the whole thing and persuaded the company to can their documentary as he was convinced it would end in failure and didn't want to be seen to promote the operation.

Looks like it's on Discovery pretty soon. If you're interested, it's pretty good and not that big into the human interest side, but does have input from the wife of the man and his son that died which is quite moving.

How to watch 'Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster' - Stream the thought-provoking documentary online

Scientists explore how the Titan submersible implosion was more than just a tragic accident

www.tomsguide.com

 

[IRstuff]

Ostrow also shows the same support ship video on his YouTube channel

 

[LittleInch]

One thing I'm always reminded of was when someone was talking about the Space shuttle and saying that compared to an aircraft which would have had hundreds if not thousands of test flights or tests to destruction for the shell or wings before letting the public on board, the space shuttle was barely up to 10 before it was in main use. So basically every flight was a test flight.

Out of the dives titan did, they had to change the shell at about 50 and many of the dives were shallow water. So maybe up to about 10 to 15 deep dives on that new shell before destruction. So again, every dive was a test dive and should never have been anywhere near accepting paying passengers. Whether all concerned really understood the risks they were being exposed to is really not clear.

 

[TugboatEng]

Hydration between the titanium dome and epoxy is a time compounded problem. It may not have even mattered how many cycles the sub made.

 

[IRstuff]

One thing I'm always reminded of was when someone was talking about the Space shuttle and saying that compared to an aircraft which would have had hundreds if not thousands of test flights or tests to destruction for the shell or wings before letting the public on board, the space shuttle was barely up to 10 before it was in main use. So basically every flight was a test flight.

All that is true, but the Space Shuttle wasn't designed for, nor intended to be, some fantasy, cost-cut, dream of someone who refused to follow solid design and test protocols.

 

[Tomfh]

NASA ignoring the Challenger O-ring issue and ignoring the Columbia foam strike damage was the same mindset Stockton Rush had toward issues with his own vehicle.

In all three cases, passengers weren’t properly informed of the real risks.

 

[Tomfh]

They then got a message from the sub which must have been somehow delayed saying dropped two weights which confused them. It is pretty chilling to listen to alright

It’s very grim. I wonder if dropping the weights was related to the failure? Or just coincidence? I understand that dropping weights was normal practice and a standard means of braking once approaching the bottom.

 

[IRstuff]

They then got a message from the sub which must have been somehow delayed saying dropped two weights which confused them. It is pretty chilling to listen to alright

Jeff Ostrow comments on that; it's likely that the message was queued into the acoustic modem, just before the implosion and sent it after.

 

[Tomfh]

Could it have been sent before the implosion?, with the shockwave overtaking the acoustic message?

 

[GregLocock]

Speed of sound (ie what the acoustic modem uses) is 1500 m/s. Speed of shockwaves can be higher initially but it soon slows down to the speed of sound, as there is an impedance mismatch problem.

 

[TugboatEng]

It's also possible that the electronics in the tail section survived for some moments and transmitted erroneous signals as senors were destroyed, wires cut.

 

[LittleInch]

The end section was remarkably intact so I assume it held the batteries and the communication system so given the speed of transmission of the message is very low it most likely kept sending the last message sent to it from inside the sub. You can see how it confused the command team though.

I had never realised that the command team on the vessel was headed up by Stocktons wife. Don't think I've seen any evidence once attributed to her. Maybe she had input into the awaited report from the USCG?