[dwheeler]

The report has many gems about the tragedy. Basically, there were clear physical causes, which in turn were caused by hubris:

PHYSICAL CAUSES

"4.2.4.4. American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) Classification Society Background" ... "The ABS Underwater Rules do not permit the use of carbon fiber composites for Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy (PVHOs)"

"4.2.4.5. Det Norske Veritas and Germanischer Lloyd (DNV GL)" ... 4.2.4.5.3. According to a DNV Surveyor, carbon fiber has not been accepted as suitable material for the construction of submersible PVHOs, especially when subject to external pressure experienced at ocean depths. According to DNV GL, carbon fibers are not considered suitable for significant compressive loading conditions."

"5.1. Inadequacy of Structural Engineering Analysis. OceanGate’s TITAN submersible design was a complex, high-risk, deep-sea submersible. The design and testing processes for TITAN did not adequately address many of the fundamental engineering principles that are considered crucial for ensuring safety and reliability for operations in such an inherently hazardous environment..."

"5.6 Insufficient Understanding of Carbon Fiber Material Properties for Deep-Sea Application. The TITAN’s pressure hull was constructed using carbon fiber, a material chosen by Mr. Rush for its “impressive” strength-to-weight ratio. [However] the use of carbon fiber in deep-sea environments remains unproven—unlike the materials with established safety records. There are currently no recognized national or international standards that approve of the use of carbon fiber pressure hulls for submersibles. Carbon fiber has demonstrated its effectiveness in other applications where the material is primarily under tension (e.g., aircraft hulls where the pressure inside the passenger compartment is pressing outwards). However, in deep-sea conditions, the pressure hull experiences extreme compressive forces, a scenario for which carbon fiber has no established track record and is generally understood to be less effective."

* * *

HUMAN DECISIONS

The physics is just the physics. There was no law of nature that forced them to take the steps they took. Instead, we have points like these:

"5.12. OceanGate’s Toxic Safety Culture. OceanGate’s operational and safety practices were critically flawed, which contributed to the catastrophic implosion of the TITAN submersible. At the core of these failures was a disconnect between the company's stated safety protocols and its actual practices. ... This highlighted systemic issues where submersible safety protocols were either egregiously inadequate or willfully disregarded, leaving critical risks unmitigated. The analysis reveals a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation and reckless disregard for safety in OceanGate's operation of the TITAN submersible, with Mr. Rush seemingly using inflated numbers to bolster the perceived safety and dive count of the final TITAN hull...

Examples of OceanGate CEO’s disdain for traditional submersible safety protocols were abundant. For example... This dismissive approach to safety culture was not limited to engineering decisions. OceanGate’s management actively retaliated against employees who raised legitimate compliance related concerns..."

This was a tragedy, because people died and this was all completely avoidable. It's the only event like this in many, many decades. I hope others will leran and avoid making similar mistakes.

[QuantumGood]

It was very clearly very early on that critical risks were known, unmitigated, and misrepresented. I don't think the kind of person(s) that know and misrepresent are the kind to learn and avoid similar mistakes, though publicizing issues like this will increase pressure on them to hide their lies better. They had a messianic CEO dismissing concerns with bluster and bravado

[stavros]

One thing to keep in mind here is that the CEO didn't hide the flaws to make a profit, otherwise he wouldn't have been on board the submersible. He hid them because he believed they were wrong.

[HumblyTossed]

How does one know the danger of something like this and then dismiss it? How do you convince yourself that you'll be okay? I don't understand that.

[rcxdude]

By convincing yourself that the existing rules are written by a bunch of paranoid bureaucrats that don't actually know what's going on. Which, to be fair, is easy to do when there's a lot of rules that are written by exactly those people, especially in safety-critical areas (my god there's a lot of stupid, ill-justified rules in the name of safety, because who can argue against that?). But the correct response isn't to just sweep them all aside as worthless, but to carefully and critically understand them, because some of them have important and not super obvious reasons behind them (and the unpredictability of composites under compression is exactly such an area, and one that is well known to experts in the area)