Much has been made over the last week about the tragic end of a submarine dive to the bottom of the ocean. For those that missed it, a group of scientists and tourists made the voyage to the sea floor in the Atlantic Ocean to see the wreckage left behind by the Titanic. After communications were no longer functioning, the submarine also lost control of itself when its steering malfunctioned, causing the group to be marooned at the bottom of the ocean.
After a lengthy search, the window to find the submersible craft was ended as the inhabitants would have long run out of reserve oxygen by now. As many pundits on tv and radio have spoken about the safety, or lack thereof, of the submarine, one person stood out with a great interview about previous voyages with the company, OceanGate.
Former showrunner of “The Simpsons” Mike Reiss is a former passenger with OceanGate’s submarine experience and he chose to speak about some of the communication issues that he and the crew experience on his previous trips. In an interview with Huff Post, Reis said that communication issues were a constant problem, “Every time they lost communication. That seems to be just something baked into the system, I don’t blame OceanGate, but I think I blame deep water for that.”
He also mentioned that technical issues caused problems for the crew guidance systems, forcing them to miss the wreckage by 500 yards and search for three hours to find the already-located Titanic. Reiss also spoke about the state of mind that he believed the passengers would have felt in their last hours aboard that submarine, saying, “There’s something just zen and otherworldly about being on this sub. And being that far down, that everybody loves to mention that I fell asleep on the sub, even though I knew death could come in any minute.”
He also added that the interior might not be the most spacious, giving a daunting recounting of the inside of the OceanGate sub. “It’s dark, it’s cool … there’s no furniture, so you’re just kind of propped up leaning against the wall with your legs sticking out.”
With the story having caught so much attention nationwide, such a first-hand recollection of the underwater experience is eye-opening as to what may have gone wrong at thousands of feet below sea level. With limited communication and navigation capabilities, the sub could have easily become mired in a nearly irreversible state of being lost.
The tragic fate of the craft was met with sadness online, as many onlookers hoped to see the submarine and its passengers located and saved before they met their demise. In other circles, many questioned why the passengers felt safe enough to consider taking the voyage in the first place and consider this outcome simply as one of the logical risks with such an undertaking.
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