Wikipedia: the "2023 Titan Submersible Incident"

Wikipedia has an article about the OceanGate Titan submersible incident. The article is still being edited since the incident is ongoing, but things are looking grim for the five souls who are aboard. OceanGate is a tourism company founded by Stockton Rush. Rich people pay a pretty penny to take an OceanGate vessel down into the benthic depths to see a variety of long-ago shipwrecks. The Titanic, arguably the best-known shipwreck out there, sits at a depth of 3,810 meters, or about 2.4 miles down. Water pressure is horrifically huge at that depth, and the OceanGate Titan is rated to a depth of 4,000 m, meaning that, in approaching the Titanic, it was also approaching its maximum dive-depth limit. Mr. Rush is described as a "daredevil inventor" known to flout safety regulations, and in fact, concerns about the Titan had been brought up as early as 2018. The Titan's hull has been repaired or replaced due to metal fatigue; at one point, a thruster was installed backwards, causing the Titan to spin in circles; during a 2022 dive to the Titanic, communications were temporarily lost. As a result, many people are pointing the finger at Mr. Rush for being too cavalier with people's lives—a character flaw that may have doomed five people, including Rush himself.

There was apparently enough air for five people until about the morning of June 22. Here in Seoul, we're currently 13 hours ahead of the US east coast (this changes in the fall), so the Titan's air ought to be running out right about now—assuming the Titan didn't violently implode because of some structural flaw. If death is the only thing on the menu for these poor people, I would hope that it came swiftly, in the form of an implosion, so that the end was quick and minimally painful.

Thousands of miles of sea floor have already been searched, but more ships from various countries are on the way. The Titan could possibly have gotten snagged on something, but any number of scenarios could also be possible. Some ROVs (remote-operated underwater vehicles) may have detected the sound of banging (as of hands on the side of a vehicle) happening every thirty minutes, but this doesn't seem to have helped anyone to locate the Titan. The multinational effort is still being considered a search and rescue, not merely a recovery operation. That status will undoubtedly change in the next 24 hours.

Debate over the incident has focused on things like how rich and privileged the passengers are, the video-game controller being used to maneuver the submersible, the fact that there were warnings about the Titan dating back years, Mr. Rush's seeming unconcern for safety regulations and third-party inspections, and design flaws inherent in the Titan. The Wikipedia article notes something disturbing about the Titan's observation window: "...the transparent viewport on its forward end was only certified to reach a depth of 1,300 meters (4,300 feet), only a third of the depth required to reach the Titanic." For this reason, I really hope the five-person complement died quickly in a sudden implosion. At this point, I hold out no hope that the passengers and crew will be found alive, but I understand why others might still want to hang on to the idea that everyone will come through this nightmare unscathed.

ADDENDUM: the five people aboard the Titan (from Wikipedia):

1. Shahzada Dawood, British-Pakistani billionaire, one of the richest people in Pakistan.
2. Suleman Dawood, 19-year-old son of Shahzada Dawood, student at U. of Strathclyde.

3. Hamish Harding, British billionaire, businessman, aviator, and space tourist.
4. Paul-Henri Nargeolet, former French Navy commander, diver, and submersible pilot.
5. Stockton Rush, British millionaire, submersible pilot, CEO and founder of OceanGate.