Fischer: Going under

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The tragedy of the Titanic now has a new appendix.

OceanGate Expeditions’ Titan, a submersible designed to take wealthy tourists 4,000 meters down to personally view the wreckage of the infamous lost ship has itself been lost.

On the surface, the irony is palpable.

The Titanic is famous the world over for being a ship that, in hindsight, was outright negligent about its safety measures, resulting in a catastrophic loss of life. A century and change later, history repeats itself as the Titan meets the same fate while literally following its namesake’s path to the bottom of the ocean.

It’s no wonder the story has captivated the public.

Of course the five casualties of the Titan deserve some level of sympathy, but there certainly seems to be a question about exactly how much is warranted.

When a group of obscenely wealthy people lock themselves into an experimental craft with a history of expressed safety concerns and the worst case scenario actually happens, what should the reaction be?

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was never shy about the seemingly haphazard nature of the Titan, a carbon fiber cylinder with a Plexiglas viewport controlled by an off-the-shelf Logitech video game controller. From the bypassing industry standard inspections and certifications to Rush’s own comments about dealing with frustrating regulations, the more that is highlighted about the Titan the more it seems like agreeing to go aboard would take an unmitigated act of hubris.

There’s a limit to how bad you can feel for somebody that willingly puts themselves into such clear danger. As a society, how we collectively respond to events like this is largely dictated by how much “they deserved it.” By my observations, this particular one seems to be ranking just above the level of sympathy for big game hunters that get eaten by lions.

I’m not sure how entirely fair that is though.

After all, unlike its namesake, the Titan didn’t go down on its maiden voyage. Guided by that Logitech gaming controller, the submersible made several trips to the Titanic and back again.

One could say they were tempting fate with each dive, and that’s probably true, but I’m not sure that the inherent danger of the Titan was as obvious as hindsight is making it out to be. After all, who hasn’t done something so potentially dangerous that it involves signing off on a waiver?

Thousands of people every day sit in a metal tube with wings on it and don’t think twice about it flying thousands of feet up into the air and down again, knowing that at any point in between they are one catastrophic event away from near-certain death.

Granted, this is where those pesky regulations and inspections Rush thumbed his nose at really show their value. At the same time obviously Rush himself was willing to bet his life on the reliability of his sub. Regardless of everything else, he was clearly confident that sufficient precautions were in place.

So what is it going to be?

Egotistical blowhard who bought too much of his own hype and was done in by his own hubris, or a boundary pushing scientist who had a bad roll of the dice and paid the ultimate price for it?

Probably somewhere in between.

— Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and can’t say he wouldn’t have signed the waiver to board the Titan if the opportunity had presented itself.