The myth that may have doomed the Titan

AS DETAILS emerged last week about the implosion of the Titan submersible in its descent to the wreck of the Titanic nearly two and a half miles below the surface of the North Atlantic, there was widespread anger that its owner and pilot knowingly took civilians on an uncertified vessel to a depth of crushing pressure.

The billionaire investor Ray Dalio, who founded the ocean exploration company OceanX with his son, Mark, expressed what he described on Twitter as his “great anger”. He accused Stockton Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate, who was piloting the Titan, of “reckless disregard for tried-and-true safety protocols that have made manned submersible exploration extremely safe”. Within the oceanography community, that view was widely held.

Rush, trained as an aerospace engineer, had justified his decision not to have his vessel certified for safety by arguing that the regulatory process stifled growth and innovation.