Just a quick note to let everyone know I’m still living… We were very busy yesterday, so I didn’t really have a chance to sit down at the computer. I have been adding small updates to the travel blog, but this isn’t a travel blog, so there’s been less time for writing here. I DO have some new topics, though, and pretty soon I’ll be back in full swing.
I do want to mention that I’ve noticed all of the people coming out of the woodwork about the doomed submersible Titan. I know the people who perished were very wealthy and people think of them as “spoiled” and privileged. I can see their points about that, BUT… I still think the way they died was absolutely horrifying. And from what I’ve read so far, I think Stockton Rush had blood on his hands. He seemed very motivated by greed, ambition, and the desire to make a name for himself. Because of that, four other people died with him in his vastly overpriced contraption, although granted, three of those people should have known better. I feel especially sad for the 19 year old, Suleman, who didn’t even want to go on the voyage in the first place. His life was snuffed out before it even began.
Anyway, we’re about to check out Visby, on Gotland Island in Sweden. I will sign off now… Maybe I’ll be back later. Maybe not.
Re the Titan: I haven’t said much about that disaster, but I will say this:
1. No, I don’t think that any of the people aboard the submersible deserved to die, not even the reckless, overly ambitious builder/owner/skipper, Stockton Rush.
2. That having been said, this was a 100% avoidable tragedy. As you pointed out, all the evidence points to a series of patently stupid decisions on Rush’s part, starting with his open disdain for shipbuilding safety regulations and his DIY approach to building a submersible that was not rated to dive 4,000 meters under the ocean. OceanGate, the company he co-founded to sell these expensive undersea tours to Titanic and other shipwrecks, claimed it WAS rated to dive that deep, but now that there is likely going to be a deluge of gross negligence lawsuits coming its way, OceanGate has shut down its website, and we can’t see any of its statements re the safety of the Titan. However, people who used to work for Rush say that he and others at OceanGate were warned that this sort of disaster was likely and that the submersible was unsafe.
3. There are two different accounts about young Suleman’s attitude about diving to Titanic with his dad and the three other men aboard Titan: His grieving mother (who, of course, may be in denial) said in interviews that Suleman was happy about going, partly because he liked hanging around his father,and partly because he wanted to get the world record for solving a Rubik’s cube at 12,900 feet underwater.
The aunt (who is, apparently, the father’s estranged sister) is the one who says, no, no… he was terrified of going aboard Titan and only went along to please his father, who was a passionate Titanic buff.
Who do I believe? I don’t know, to be honest. The mother was on the mother ship and thus an eyewitness to what happened up to the point that Titan made its/her final, fatal dive. However,…she’s a grieving mom and widow, so it’s possible that she either has selective memory or just wants to give her family grievous loss a positive spin.
The aunt? I don’t know if she was there or not. I haven’t read every article on the accident cos I’m busy writing my first novel, blogging, and coping with my own issues. I did read that her relationship with the dad was strained (to put it mildly), so maybe that fact colors her narrative.
Anyway, I, too, am not thrilled with the “they were billionaires, so they don’t deserve to be mourned over” attitude I’ve run into on social media since the news broke that Titan had run into trouble a week or so ago. I am upset that Rush had such a lackadaisical philosophy about safe submersible designs, and I agree that he is 100% responsible for all five deaths. Right now, though, the only billionaires I wouldn’t shed a tear over are Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump…but I do feel sad about the folks that died on Titan, their wealth notwithstanding.
I just think it must have been a terrifying, horrific way to die. I wouldn’t wish it on almost anyone.