When my children were young, in lieu of a bedtime story they would sometimes ask: “Tell us about another time you almost died.”
Which is to say: I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life and have survived more than my share of close calls.
I recently wrote about how, in late May, I was twice tapped to visit the Titanic wreck in the OceanGate submersible, Titan. Both dives were ultimately canceled due to bad weather, as were all others over the following two weeks (“Waiting to dive to the Titanic: My time with OceanGate,” June 26).
The first trip this year that did dive resulted in the tragic implosion that cost the lives of the five people inside.
This close call has had a greater impact on me than previous near-escapes, in part because I knew three of the people in the submersible, and in part knowing the likely outcome if indeed I had been able to dive in the Titan in May.
My thoughts and emotions have been compounded by the reaction of my immediate family. My wife and children were simultaneously compassionate and angry with me. They could easily imagine the impact it would have had on them if I had been on Titan’s final mission, and they told me in no uncertain terms that my tolerance for risk-taking must include their perspective in the calculus. They asked, for example, that I give up my aspiration to go into space.
I didn’t make that commitment, but I did agree to change how I evaluate risk.
In doing so, I maintain an appreciation for the subset of people who get involved with exploration that’s initially viewed as experimental and possibly dangerous, but whose work ultimately moves society forward and lowers risk by increasing our understanding of the unknown. When Charles Lindberg flew across the Atlantic, it was front page news around the world. Last year, 57 million people flew across the Atlantic, most without giving safety a second thought.
Experimental submersible technology has the potential to greatly enhance underwater research and understanding. (In certain aspects, far less is known about the oceans than space.) If done safely, and funded by tourism, it could bring heightened awareness and appreciation for our threatened oceans to more people.
I had told Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s CEO and the designer and pilot of the Titan, that I was actually more interested in seeing cold-water reefs near the wreck than viewing the Titanic itself. I feel I’m not alone in wanting to explore the extraordinary life-forms found in the oceans’ depths. (I’m particularly interested in hydrothermal vents and their adjacent extremophiles.) I can imagine that underwater safaris could become a significant travel industry niche if operated safely.
As regards OceanGate, a lot has come out these past few weeks about the early warnings sounded about the company’s use of carbon fiber in the Titan’s hull, the suspected cause of the implosion. I was unaware of those communications when I had elected to dive in the submersible and in fact felt reassured by a variety of factors: Submersible technology is not new; a sub was designed during the Revolutionary War, and submarines played prominent roles in both world wars. I had assumed the technology and dangers were well understood and that Rush, who had a degree in aerospace engineering, paid heed to the necessary tolerances. After all, he would be piloting the sub.
In addition, 28 people had successfully ridden the Titan to the Titanic last year, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who had a long history of diving to wrecks in submersibles (he had been to the Titanic 37 times), had endorsed the reliability of the Titan and would be diving with me.
It turned out, of course, that Rush had exaggerated some of his bona fides to me and others, particularly when he claimed NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington were involved in the design and testing of the Titan. But I had also spent days observing the OceanGate corporate culture, which seemed both transparent and risk-averse. I was comfortable going with OceanGate.
That trust was obviously misplaced. So, what can a potential extreme tourism participant do to better evaluate risk?
I found an article “‘A preoccupation with failure:’ Why the Titan submersible was doomed from the start,” by Canadian Press reporter Michael MacDonald to be clarifying in this regard. In essence, it says that groups that operate in high-risk industries must be “high reliability organizations” whose focus is not on previous successes but rather on the possibility of failure and how to prevent it. These companies shy away from simplicity (Rush relied on a modified gaming controller to operate the Titan) and embrace the complexity of high-risk operations.
The future of extreme tourism, whether deep-sea submersibles or trips into space, will require that companies offering risky adventures put a preoccupation on failure above speed to market. For some, one hopes, overcoming impatience to operate won’t be as daunting as the technical challenges of leaving Earth’s atmosphere safely.