Even if the submersible has surfaced somewhere, the hatch is bolted shut from the outside. Imagine not being able to breath once you’ve surfaced? The whole situation is tragic.
*Edited to add that I cross posted with @momofboiler1
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To me, there’s a huge difference between what risks you can take yourself as an explorer, and what risks are acceptable when you take paying passengers.
There are worrying echoes here of debates in space tourism about passengers accepting flight risks that they really don’t understand. I very much fear we’ll be confronted with something similar from a company like Virgin Galactic which has had fatal accidents in the past.
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What a horrible way to die. Repercussions soon to follow, I’m sure.
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I think those paying passengers should be deemed sophisticated enough to take the risks (or they’re rich enough to pay someone to help them evaluate the risks). Whether they take the risks for curiosity, adventure, or publicity, they should live (or die) with the consequence.
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I think there is a distinction between a trip with Virgin Galactic vs a trip with Titan. The Virgin Galactic craft was designed by Burt Rutan, one of the most respected aircraft designers ever, with dozens of industry awards. In contrast, Stockton Rush has dabbled in many things and has no real background in submarine design.
Trips to outer space or to the ocean depths are inherently dangerous, and people will die. The difference is that a Burt Rutan craft has taken into account everything that science and engineering knows. In contrast, the Titan submarine ignored just about everything that experts know.
Of course, I doubt this distinction matters to lawyers and juries.
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2023 Titan submersible incident - Wikipedia.
The Titan has not made many trips to the Titanic, and there have been issues with each of the past trips. (Read the part on prior concerns.)
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Rutan retired in 2011, and there have been many iterations since then (especially after the fatal accident in 2014). His original design was SpaceShipOne as a one off test vehicle (which never flew again because no one knew how long it would last). The reason SpaceShipTwo has taken nearly 20 years is because they tried a quick scaling up which the design was unsuited for (including the underperforming engine which meant they had to redefine the altitude of space).
They just had to spend two years repairing the craft because of worries it would disintegrate (bits were falling off in flight). The fatal accident came after the person responsible for safety left the company. Many potential parallels here.
I’m having a hard time getting worked up about this when hundreds of people died off the coast of Greece last week. I can’t believe that story disappeared from the news cycle in a couple of days, but this one has updates every 30 minutes.
It shouldn’t even be on the news channels. Put it on E!
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I can manage to have empathy for both situations.
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I hope the people attempting the rescues are not harmed and I hope for the people on the submersible that they are found, but… the counter point scene in the movie Airplane! has been running in my head since it hit the news: ‘They bought their ticket, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let ‘em crash.’ And I’ll go get my room ready in Hell now.
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Well this is a good example of selective news reporting— what happened in Greece?? Haven’t heard a thing 
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That is my worst nightmare, I get claustrophobic. I couldn’t even go on the submarine ride at Disneyland…
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A comparison of space and deep oceanic travel:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/21/world/ocean-exploration-explainer-missing-titanic-sub-scn/index.html
Correct - the best possible outcome is for them to have run into difficulty during descend, were able to establish buoyancy through a number of means (some work without electricity), and the submersible being located at the surface in time.
If indeed they somehow got entangled at depth (as some suggested), options are very limited. Because they are bolted in, there is no way to “transfer” them - even if there was a depth-capable rescue vessel, and in reach. Freeing them from entanglement would depend on the “mechanical” abilities/attachments of any ROV.
But worst, they are 350 miles from the nearest shore - so any specialty equipment that relies on sea transportation and was not already in that part of the ocean could still be days away. People don’t realize that most oceanic research vessel travel well under 20 knots (nautical miles/hour)
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Oh thats horrible!
I participated in an Escape Room and made them show me I would not actually be locked in.
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I’m in the camp of “can care about more than one thing at a time.”
But how can someone not have heard about the Greek disaster? Do people only get their news from nightly TV still? It’s all over news sites on-line.
The submersible story resonates because, rich or not, they are people experiencing and probably dying in a horrible way that strikes many people’s deepest fears.
The drowned migrants story is horrific, as hundreds of people died in an accident that probably could have been avoided, and they might have been saved,( plus the politics of people looking for a chance at the decent lives we take for granted, but I won’t open that up further here in this forum.)
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Imagine awaiting death for days in a small tube?
Awful story. Haven’t had the TV on in days (well it was background noise one morning) and for whatever reason it didn’t pop up as a breaking news on my phone 
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