What a horrible way to go.

[StrictlyRockers]

What a horrible way to go. They must have had such trepidation about boarding the vessel in the first place. Imagine their fear as they realized it's about to break apart and kill them. Their bodies may never be recovered.

Five hundred migrants were lost at sea. That's a real tragedy. 😢

[StrictlyRockers]

1. Also, some crazy, rich billionaires died being stupid.

Link to tweet

[Ray Bruns]

3. Ok, I'll admit it. You got me.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

5. I imagine the carbon fiber construction

Didn’t give much warning before breaking up like a bomb exploding inward.

I would have liked that CEO to have had a few moments to reflect on the above-Sophoclean hubris that was ending his life.
-Firing and suing the officer who raised safety issues within the company.
-Ignoring the submersible community’s written concerns and recommendations for certification and testing.
-Running the business outside the zone of governmental jurisdiction, avoiding THAT aspect of safety oversight and regulation.
-Declaring that “safety at some point becomes a waste”.

Oh well. Hundreds of people fleeing desperate circumstances did die and that is the much larger tragedy.

[cloudbase]

6. Actually, it was a very quick way to go.

They died before they were even aware of anything going wrong. There are no bodies to recover.
With the possible exception of the young son, everybody willingly got into the vessel.

The migrants were a tragedy, but so were the people on the Titan, though I have considerably less sympathy for them/

[no_hypocrisy]

7. I feel for the kid. His father pressured him into going.

He didn't want to go.

[MissMillie]

8. I thought about this all through the week

And part of me was hoping that it happened the way that it did.

The thought of 5 people, enclosed, deep in the ocean, no food or water, FOR DAYS... knowing that there was limited oxygen.... sounded awful.


Don't get me wrong... it's a tragedy. The only comfort in this is that it happened very quickly.

[malaise]

9. Well done

Rec

[Kaleva]

10. They are of the wrong color to get much coverage here

[Initech]

11. I think the real overlooked part of this tragedy:

Is how Oceangate was able to skirt around government safety regulations for nearly 2 decades with an extremely poorly constructed vessel. Quite frankly, I'm absolutely shocked that something like this didn't happen sooner. Reading about how poorly constructed that vessel was, that thing was a disaster waiting to happen. This whole incident was the product of deregulated, disaster capitalism. And those are the people who should be punished for this disaster, but won't be.

[localroger]

12. Nobody has jurisdiction

Submersibles don't have a port where they need to register. They are just cargo until the mothership (which in this case was rented) drops the submersible into international waters. What rules? Who would enforce them? The open sea is a pretty lawless place compared to just about every square inch of land (except maybe inland Antarctica).