Titan submersible tragedy sends shockwaves through North Vancouver business

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News of the implosion of the Titan submersible and the deaths of all five people on board sent shockwaves through the underwater exploration community on Friday, a small group with several BC connections.

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Jeff Heaton, operations manager and chief submersible pilot for Nuytco Investigationa North Vancouver company that designs and builds submersibles, said the news was causing “a lot of soul-searching.”ection” at the end of a hard week.

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Heaton knew two of the five people aboard the Titan, which imploded during an expedition to the Titanic wreckage in the North Atlantic earlier this week. On Thursday, the US Coast Guard. confirmed Debris had been found about 500 meters from the wreck.

Heaton said the deaths are unlikely to change the way his company operates because it follows codes and standards that have made it “very safe.”

“We need to consider this an anomaly because your vehicle was not up to code and did not adhere to those standards,” he said.

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Heaton was referring to “experimental” elements of the Titan’s design, including a carbon fiber main hull section. Most deep-sea submersibles are made from titanium or steel alloys and are certified by industry third parties to ensure they meet safety standards.

On Friday, film director James Cameron, who became a deep-sea explorer after researching and making the movie Titanic, said Reuters he thought a carbon fiber helmet was a “horrible” idea and wished he had said so sooner.

“We celebrate innovation, right? But you shouldn’t be using an experimental vehicle to pay passengers who aren’t deep-sea engineers,” Cameron said, comparing the Titan to the Titanic, saying both tragedies were preceded by neglected warnings.

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“Now there’s a wreck next to another wreck for the same damn reason.”

But ocean exploration “has to continue,” Heaton said. Research is particularly important in the face of climate change. “We don’t have the baseline data (on ocean conditions) and the goal posts are already moving.”

Nuytco Research’s main market right now is the military, working on submarine salvage systems to bring people to the surface of damaged submarines, rather than bringing an entire ship to the surface. The company also builds submersibles and develops technology for commercial and research purposes, such as subsea salvage, recovery and construction. Tourism is not a major part of what they do.

“I think the future of underwater research is very strong,” Heaton said. Advances in computer programming that allow large volumes of data to be collected and analyzed could lead to rapid advances, with a worldwide recognition that understanding the greatest resource on the planet is becoming increasingly important.

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He predicted that the Titan incident could lead to a “small lull” in tourism, which has been “booming” in recent years.

Vancouver businessman Ron Toigo, who has made two voyages over the past two summers and spent nearly 40 hours on Titan, called the loss of the submersible and its crew “devastating.”

“I have lost two very good friends,” he said.

When asked about his voyages on the Titan, Toigo said he was “very glad” he did the voyages when he did, because it may be “some time, if ever, before people can do it again.” “.

Toigo insisted that the Titan’s captain, Stockton Rush, CEO of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate Expeditions, had done everything he was supposed to do to test his design, including stress tests on the ocean floor. .

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“It was his dream to open the ocean to people who want to see it,” he said.

The carbon fiber hull allowed Rush to build a larger vessel to comfortably accommodate more people, rather than a small sphere, Toigo said. “That was his logic, and he changed everything.”

Toigo said he believes that over time and a lot of travel, the carbon fiber eventually wore out.

He said he “felt sick” for Rush’s wife and family as they deal with the consequences of their loss.

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