The Chaser Report - That Time We Were 100% Correct About The OceanGate Submersible

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

Here at The Chaser Report we don't like to gloat about when we were right, mostly because it happens so much. However today Charles felt like remembering that time he predicted literally every aspect of the Titanic OceanGate submersible disaster, days before the rest of the world had a clue what was going on. Well done Charles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Now, it is Tuesday, Wednesday, what is it? I don't know, fucking Thursday or whatever. It's about 7pm, I'm already in my pajamas. I'm not fucking doing an episode for today. So what I have suggested to everyone, and they have agreed,

because they are wonderful people is that what we should do is we should look back to a time when I was absolutely completely right about everything. We're going to do a rerun of the Ocean Gate Titan episode where days before anyone else I predicted exactly how it would go down.

Now, keep in mind, this episode went to air even while it was like Schrodinger's Ocean It was shrewding his submarine. We did not know what had happened to this submarine, whether they were alive, whether they're dead. Nothing was known. And yet, somehow, like always, I was completely right. Here we go.

Now, Charles, you've got some news for us. What's happening? Well, okay, so there's the horrible, tragic, but very gruesomely fascinating story of the submarine that is stuck somewhere. Oh, you're not going to do the, it's in the balance. We're not doing jokes about dead people. Let's point out that as we record this, it's in the balance. We don't know whether it's going to be found, but there's apparently still air. I think it's going to remain in the balance for a few weeks, Don.

By the time you hear this, it might be resolved one way or the other. But how are we to know? How are we to know? But look, I don't want to focus too much on gleefully talking about, you know, people being brought down by their own hubris. But I do want to say, I think that the, This story is just almost the example of the perfect modern metaphor. You know how the Titanic was a metaphor for 1912?

Sure. So you had thousands of people boarding dispotions and all the poor people then drowned. Like, you know, because it was this sort of gilded age and that's what you did to poor people. This submarine, the details of this submarine is fascinating, right? Let me just let's get on to that right after this. Okay. And see if Charles can bring it back. So there's five people on board this submarine

Which I think is very much like nowadays We've got this billionaire class Who get to do things that nobody else does Like whereas in 1912 At least the poor people got to get on the disaster Yes now it's silly mini vehicles Like Jeff Bezos's Blue Horizon Branson's Virgin Galactic

Which has already been cancelled by the way And then this mini sub going down to look at the Titanic Like, didn't James Cameron already establish the blow all the trays of obscenly rich people going down to gawk at a graveyard? But this is to commoditise it and make it into a sort of tourism for billionaires, basically. Of course. And there weren't, it wasn't just widely reported that there was one billionaire on board. It wasn't.

There were two billionaires on board. And arguably three, right, which is, so there was that British billionaire that everyone knows about. The second billionaire was a Pakistani, oil magnate, right, who last year they cleared $46 billion or something through their company. So, you know, not doing too badly. He brought his son along, who arguably is also a billionaire, or at least a billionaire air, right? And then the other two people on board were the experts. I mean, one was the CEO of the ocean liner, and then the other one was a scientist explorer guy, right? So essentially, instead of just having a sort of thing that everyone gets

it was very much, I think it's very metaphorical that it's just literally billionaires and experts were the only people who were even allowed to board this floating metaphor, it's sinking metaphor. It's quite extraordinary, isn't it, to think, I hadn't quite viewed it in these terms until now, Charles, that you've got people going and gawking on a watery mass grave and thereby potentially consigning themselves to an elite grave. It's a not a mass grave, a tiny little billionaires and experts only grave, It is Titanic 2, and what the great thing is, is James Cameron gets to make a sequel.

I mean, it's just, it writes itself. And also, can you imagine, like, there will now be tourists wanting to go and view Titanic 2. Both gravesites. Yes, exactly. Oh, man. So it's just going to keep going. Like, I think this has got another 100 years to play out on this story. I want to talk about the CEO of this whole Ocean Gate Enterprise.

Right. So is this the CEO of the business to try and get more people to go on mini-subtours of Titanic? Yeah, yeah. His name's Stockton Rush, right? Great name. Great name. Except maybe if you're wanting to sort of be an attention to detail person and not rush. I imagine like a fast-talking Josh Brolin will play him in the adaptation.

Oh, no, he is the Elon Musk of the Sea, this guy. Oh, wow. Give Elon five years and Elon Musk will be the Elon Musk of the Sea. But anyway. He gave this wonderful. report, interview on CBS last year, where he was just laughing at how unsafe the whole thing was. One detail that's come out just in the last 24 hours or so is that the safety concerns, you know, there were details, things like, so the window, there's one window in this little

submersible vessel, right, right at the front. Yeah, right. So you have to, if you go on it, you pay $250,000 US to go on this submersible. and then you've got to take turns in looking out onto the Titanic or wherever you are. Really? So you pay a quarter of a million dollars for a tiny porthole that you've got to share. Yes. And then there's cameras on the outside. So most of the time you just spend looking at the screen. Oh, well, I mean, every modern experience has to involve screen time, doesn't it? It's more real than seeing it with your own eyes. Exactly. But the window that Stockton Rush put in, the manufacturer of this window,

refused to safety rate it beyond depths of 1,300 metres. And this submersible has to go down 4,000 metres. So it's like three times as deep as what it was safely able to do. Am I right in thinking that underwater pressure escalates in a non-linear fashion? So the deeper you go, it's not as though it's three times more pressure. It's dramatically more pressure than that. I read this fascinating thread written by engineers about the engineering sort of like the catastrophe hubris that is, well, that underwater represents right, which is.

So they were asking this astro physicist engineer like who does space things, what the pressures were and he said, oh, it's nothing like, like space is so much easier than the sea because with air pressure and the pressure on a vessel, you're dealing in space with pressures between one atmosphere, which is what humans can survive in, and zero atmospheres. So you've actually only got a little bit of pressure to worry about. And actually all the pressure is coming from the inside, which is really easy to manage.

With under sea vessels, when you get to those depths, it's something like 700,000 tonnes of. pressure or something per square inch, some ridiculous amount of pressure. But the whole thing is that if the structure starts to, you know, collapse or starts to sort of, you know, not be able to support that pressure, it becomes extremely complicated to model because it gets crushed, right? And that's a sort of, it's a chaotic thing to happen. Like it collapses in on itself.

And so it's sort of almost impossible to model what will happen at these sorts of pressures. Charles, I'm just reading about this at the NAA website, the US kind of atmospheric body, they say that for every 10 metres you descend, there's an extra atmosphere's worth of pressure. So 4,000 metres, you're getting 4,000 times. And apparently whales can do it because their lungs collapse, but humans, not so much. So the windows were added to 1,300. Now, I'd just like to pick up the metaphor idea here now, which is, okay, so thousands of people were allowed to board the original Titanic.

Yes. And the poor people just didn't get a window, whereas this time around there is only one window. Not even the rich people get a window. It was such a shitty little experience. Anyway, and then the other great detail that this Stockton Rush guy said in the CBS interview last year was how he was boasting about how the whole vessel only has one button. Wow.

And they use a PlayStation controller. It's literally a Logitech PlayStation controller. to steer the thing and stuff like that. Like, it's literally an off-the-shelf thing that you can buy to a computer store, which was actually built in, somebody tracked down the exact model, built in 2005 and was actually originally developed

for Windows Me. Do you remember? I do remember. I can't believe there's a relic of Windows Me that's lost. I mean, the lives are sad, but that controller is the only Windows Me controller on the planet that still works. Well, no, it's funny.

actually because there were gamers commenting on it saying that that controller notoriously had a lot of drift. Oh no. So, you know, who knows? Maybe they will turn up. They'll just be like, you know, thousands of kilometres somewhere else because of the fucking controller. But if they are found, so this is the thing.

So, okay, obviously they've run into some troubles. They had the ability to release their safety weights, right? Which means that they could slowly ascend to the surface, right? They've got enough oxygen to survive, right? And that's why most of the rescue effort has been actually concentrating on will they be just floating somewhere. One of the problems that Stockton didn't think about is that the Atlantic there is incredibly choppy, very foggy. So the whole thing looks basically white, right? Like the sea is white because it's choppy and the air is white because it's foggy.

They painted the vessel white. It is a white vessel. What a metaphor. So it's invisible, essentially, is what you're saying to reference. I mean, very cool at a puff daddy party. Yeah, yeah. So, and apparently there's no, they didn't have a beacon. They didn't buy a beacon that could then, you know, be triggered.

Why would you need a beacon? Yeah. So it's just floating there. And the horrible, horrible fact, which I'm sure is metaphorical in some way that I haven't thought about it enough. is that they are bolted in. So the way you get into this vessel is you all get in, five of you get in, and then they have 14 massive bolts that they bolt you in with.

And so there is no way for them to get out. So even if they're bobbing along the surface, they'll be able to see the air, they'll be able to see the sky, or at least the fog, but not be able to get to. Because when you're paying a quarter of a million dollars to go into an ocean vessel, you wouldn't want them to come up with any sort of quick release.

system. Yes. Yes. That's not necessary. That's horrible. The Chaser report. Now with extra whispers. Now so, you know, you're probably thinking, well, it's a pity, but, you know, when you're innovating and when you're at the bleeding edge of things, you know, you do have to break things. You know, things do go wrong. There are risks. Everyone went in wider. It's open. The only little tiny problem with that narrative is that actually what happened was that the head of marine safety of Ocean Gate in 2018. I'm amazed they have one. Well, they don't have one, raised concerns about all these issues and a few others.

Apparently there was a whole lot of flammable stuff. They were using flammable things on board, which is apparently a terrible thing to do in a submarine. I think so. And so he tried to raise the alert on all this, and Ocean Gates, CEO, Stockton Rush, sacked him. And then he had a prolonged lawsuit against Ocean Gate, and it was a whistleblower lawsuit. And part of the whole thing was, part of the rest of things that he was seeking, which he ultimately didn't get because Ocean Gate's lawyers were, you know, better funded than this poor whistleblower, was he wanted the people, the customers to be informed of all the safety problems with this vessel. like the rating of the, you know, the non-rating of the windows and the controller and the lack of beacon and the bolts and all that sort of stuff.

I mean, I think if I was bolted into a submarine, I'd pay it a quarter of a million dollars and I saw that it was being piled with a logitech gaming controller. I think I'd ask to do the bolts and get the fuck out of it, wouldn't you? Yeah, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, anyway, so I just thought, like, presumably you'll hear a lot of stuff about this in the coming days. And look, we hope they survive because I want to hear the story of what the hell it was like. Yes.

Oh, it would make a brilliant, I mean, it'll make a brilliant horror movie either way, won't it? I mean, it's just, do you suffer from claustrophobia? I'm the world's worst claustrophobic. I don't normally. I think this would be the experience that made me realize I had it. I mean, being bolted into this tiny tin can, what do they do about going to the bathroom? I know it's an indelicate question, but are they just all basically shitting next to each other for five days.

Well, I, I, um, on the, there is a, there is a small toilet, yes. Right. Um, on the CBS thing, they, they show you where, where there's a little private. All right. So they can move around inside it. There's 14 bolts that keep them inside the vessel. I thought they were bolted into their chairs. Oh, no, no.

They're bolted into the vessel. Right. No, no. It's, uh, it's a, um, it's like a minivan. Oh, okay. It's about the size of a minivan. So they can move, you can move around in it. Although apparently it's very uncomfortable because you've got

sit along the side and the side is is curved so you sort of end up sort of crouching the whole time so anyway and I'll just leave you with this thought which is that this comes a few days after a you know how we were talking about fashions in killer whale colonies oh yes that's right yeah so the latest fashion in orca colonies is to attack rich yachts Right? I've heard of this, yeah. Yeah, so there's been several, you know, multi-million dollar fancy yachts who've been attacked in the last week.

Another metaphor. Yes. But a pot of orcas was seen swimming just near that submersable. Knocking on the glass. So I'm just saying there's a whole conspiracy theory angle to this that is yet to come out. But I think the orcas did it, Don. Wow. Well, what an extraordinary episode this is. Charles, this has been fascinating. I didn't know all these details. I'm just looking at the New York Times website, just to date, just to date this, just to prove that they're not dead yet as we record this.

And the top story on their live blog of the event, very big story on the New York Times website, industry leaders had significant concerns about Titanic Tourist Sub. And it's basically just explaining it in detail that everyone thought it was a death trap, basically. So, yeah, that's not good. Look, if we're being a little bit sort of cynical about it, you know how, you know, there is an argument to say that billionaires shouldn't exist. Sure. Well, they're doing their dardist. It feels like they're doing their d'art.

I think it might be a self-solving problem. Well, give the Orcas a chance. I don't know that they're going to be able to bring down Jeff Bezos's half a billion dollar yacht that he just... Every time I think about ordering Amazon now, I just remember Jeff Bezos. lost his yacht and think I just can't. I just can't give that man more money. But if anyone can bring them down, competitors can't do it.

But I think the Yorkers might find a way. Well, there you go. So, yeah, anyway, and so I suppose my final point is, you know, as you hear all these theories over the coming weeks and the idea that, well, you know, they went in eyes wide open. I think the point is they didn't. Like literally these customers, it's like they were being sold to Tesla and they weren't told that it keeps crashing.

and self-exploding on the road and stuff like that. And I'm just remembering that Elon Musk offered those poor people stuck in the cave a mini-submarine, do you remember? Yes. That would be the one vessel that makes this one look seaworthy, I'm thinking. I just wait until Elon learn the launchers underwater test load will come any day now. Look, I'm waiting for Elon to launch a ridiculous takeover offer for Ocean Gate any day now. Yes, and surely he should be mounting a rescue mission for his fellow billionaire.

Anyway, Charles, fascinating story. He did actually tweet out that they're using Starlink Internet to coordinate the rescue mission because it's the only internet you can get out in the middle of the Atlantic. So that, Charles, I just hope we don't have to take this episode down in a few hours when they find the submarine under very tragic circumstances with a telltale sort of orca signature. Orca, yeah. On the correct glass. I, for one, welcome our orca overlords.

Our gurus from Rogue, we're part of the Icona place. network and that's anyway that's that's that's all so yeah welcome orcus