In the news

Oh, gods. New Yorker has a damning, extensive report on the Titan Submersible failure (archive copy). The list of things they did wrong is insane. The point where Stockton Rush asked his Finance director if she'd like to become the chief submersible pilot isn't close to being the worst (she declined and then quit at the earliest opportunity).

The former chief pilot quit after they rejected his concerns over a goodly list of flaws:

Glue was coming away from the seams of ballast bags, and mounting bolts threatened to rupture them; both sealing faces had errant plunge holes and O-ring grooves that deviated from standard design parameters. The exostructure and electrical pods used different metals, which could result in galvanic corrosion when exposed to seawater. The thruster cables posed “snagging hazards”; the iridium satellite beacon, to transmit the submersible’s position after surfacing, was attached with zip ties. The flooring was highly flammable; the interior vinyl wrapping emitted “highly toxic gasses upon ignition.”