r/interestingasfuck • u/ThugLeeVoguee • 1d ago

The implosion of the Titan submarine (OceanGate) was so rapid that the pain wasn't even registered by the brain. They didn't feel anything at all. Utterly instantaneous.

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u/makina323 1d ago edited 1d ago

The implosion happened in less than 5 milliseconds, it takes a brain 300 milliseconds for the brain hardware to register and process a conscious reaction to it. They literally just stopped existing with zero knowledge that it happened.

Edit

To those people disputing the time, this is an average human, yes you can lower your reaction times by training your reflexes, your brain can process visual stimulus in 13 to 16 ms, but you wont consciously comprehend it for another 100 ms at best and there is another 150-300 ms delay to physically react like saying oh shit or blink, and even still in this scenario the last image your eyes picked up when the sub imploded 3 milliseconds ago is still being formed in your retina.

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u/Ok-Break1985 1d ago

Seems better than pain or the long drawn out process of dying from disease. 

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u/RedditAppSuxAsss 1d ago edited 23h ago

This, any one who has had a near death or witness multiple loved ones die from a disease knows it's terrible.

Fuck cancer, fuck pneumonia, fuck strokes, Alzheimer's, and fuck encephalitis

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u/Phytanic 23h ago

My mom died from ALS and there's very little if anything worse than it. Cancer at least typically has some possibility of early detection and recovery. If I get a terminal diagnosis of something, I'm traveling and making peace before I go out my way

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u/biptybopty 21h ago

My dad had ALS, he ended up taking his own life....I don't blame him, it's a terrible disease.

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u/Hercusleaze 18h ago

Yep. Watched my wife's mother slowly degrade over about a year from ALS. It's pretty awful.

I think I'd quit my job, try to travel as much as possible, and before I was too far gone, go out on my own terms as well. I definitely wouldn't want to put my wife through the worst of it again, not after she lost her mother that way.

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u/princenag25 16h ago

Fuck Parkinson's + too

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u/SoulReaper42 19h ago

My great grandmother died from bowel cancer over a few months and she was hopped up on morphine the last few weeks of her life. Dad died from a freak cardiac arrest and was gone within half an hour. I'm glad he went pretty quickly instead of being drawn out.

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u/throw_way_340 22h ago

Seconding this, FUCK all of those.

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u/Automatic_Pen8494 1d ago

Agree. Theres nothing crueler than cancer

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u/WranglerSilver6451 1d ago

That’s a tough one when you take Alzheimer’s/dementia into account.

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u/RedditAppSuxAsss 23h ago

There was times where he'd believe he is being held captive by his current wife that he does not know or remembers and he would cry out at night for his ex-wife that has passed decades beforehand.

Was absolutely heartbreaking for my great grandmother.

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u/WranglerSilver6451 23h ago

We got a fella in church and his wife has really taken a turn. The cops were there at 3 am to remove him from the house because she was in the front yard screaming that he was an intruder. They’ve been together for 50 years or more.

I’m not discounting cancer and the toll it takes. However, I believe dementia is crueler on all levels and harder to care for a person with it.

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u/RedditAppSuxAsss 23h ago

My great-grandfather died from Alzheimer's and it was the worst one. The horribly sad stories I could tell that just are just awful awful for everyone around

And I fear so badly that my grandfather inherited it.

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u/burf 23h ago

There are a lot of neurological diseases that would like a word on that. But either way, it's trying to pick the worst of a pile of shit. There are many truly awful ways to die in this world.

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u/blondebuilder 1d ago

Were they dying of disease?

I'd argue going deep, dark underwater in that confined tube under tremendous pressure, waiting for the pop out of existence would be a terrifying way to go.

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u/enviormental_UNIT 1d ago

well its not like they thought it would be crushed when they went into it. The implication the above commenter made was that a quick, instantaneous, painless death with no real warning is much better than slowy rotting away from some terminal illness that you know is going to kill you soon.

Sure, in retrospect its easy for you to imagine being in that submarine thinking it would have been so super scary, knowing of course what would later happen to it. In reality though, you have to remember most of the people on board were convinced of the safety of the thing, nobody went on thinking they seriously had a chance they would die, and there was already precedent that the submarine could in fact make it down to those extreme depths without issue.

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u/B_Eazy86 1d ago

"Without issue" is incorrect but Stockton Rush let everyone think it was correct. Pretty sure all the cracking popping noises and loss of communication and all the other problems they dealt with regularly and even moreso on that day were terrifying for the hours leading up, no matter what this psychopath was saying to try to keep everyone calm.

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u/Badloss 1d ago

the documentaries are fucking crazy, you can hear the carbon fibers cracking on the earlier dives and fucking everyone involved except Rush is bugeyed looking at each other knowing that's a super bad thing and somehow they just kept on doing it

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u/FilmAndLiterature 1d ago edited 23h ago

I read the full NTSB and Coastguard report and it’s drier but still equally insane.

It has wonderful trivia such as:

- The company as part of its safety policy had a “designated safety officer”. To this day, the coastguard do not know who it was, because not a single person they interviewed could tell them.

- The fatal dive (Dive 81) had a “Risk Index” of 35. Now, you may wonder what a Risk Index of 35 indicates and how it was calculated. Nobody knows the answer to either of those questions.

- Dives operated in spring and summer, meaning the submarine was out of use in the winter months. Now given their Titanic operations were launched in Canada, winter storage is a big deal, as strong wind, heavy rain, and ice can seriously damage it. They just left it in the car park of the dock they were launching from for the entire winter. The dock owners emailed them multiple times to warn them it was a terrible idea which could damage if not destroy the sub, but all of them were ignored - including one in which the owners offered to literally just pop out and buy a tarp to throw over it - because (as far as they could tell) the dock owners were using the email address of someone who was high up in the company but not directly involved with submarines so they decided it wasn’t their business and told no one.

And many more.

ETA: Somehow managed to forget that when they first realised the sub was missing, they called the wrong coast guards. Not to get into too many details, but basically to make search and rescue in deep oceans with multiple active coast guards more efficient the International Maritime Organisation splits them into multiple regions (called SRRs), each managed by a different coast guard. Titan set off from Canada so when the submarine went missing they called the Canadian Coast Guard in Halifax. However, the Titanic lies in the SRR of the US Coast Guard, so they should have contacted Boston. The operators at Halifax got them in touch with Boston very quickly, but it’s baffling that a company built around the Titanic wouldn’t even bother to check the coast guard responsible for it.

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u/IAmRobinGoodfellow 20h ago

I read the full NTSB and Coastguard report and it’s drier

Bravo.

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u/currently_pooping_rn 1d ago

Didn’t one submersible expert guy go down like 500 feet, here the cracking, and demanded to be brought back up? Then he kinda dipped out wanting no part of

Or something like that idk it’s been a minute

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u/B_Eazy86 1d ago

Learning they secretly replaced the hull after they found a massive crack and then just pretended that didn't happen is absolute insanity.

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u/zefstyle 1d ago

Didn't that dudes son not want to be there. He would have likely been terrified the whole time.

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u/Paavo_Nurmi 22h ago

much better than slowy rotting away from some terminal illness that you know is going to kill you soon.

This, lost both parents to cancer and it can take years of never ending unimaginable pain and medical appointments before they are gone.

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u/b0w_monster 1d ago

They died from Capitalism.

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u/Themimic 1d ago

Yes the economic system he was under is what forced this man to ignore all advice and take a doomed to fail, home made sub to the bottom of the ocean

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u/XBacklash 1d ago

Bunch of billionaires (and the unfortunate kid). They were dead inside already

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u/Character-Fan4981 1d ago

The French guy wasn't a billionaire. Certainly full of his own hubris, but not a billionaire.

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u/Chemical-Elk-1299 1d ago edited 1d ago

He’s the most baffling . PHN knew more about the Titanic than any man living. He’d dived it dozens of times.

I can understand if he just genuinely didn’t care if he lived or died. The Titanic was his true love, and he was gonna dive her at all costs.

But why in the fuck would he sign off on the thing to carry rich tourists? He absolutely knew better. They didn’t. And he explicitly said it was safe, despite knowing good and damn well it was not.

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u/grenouille_en_rose 18h ago

The OceanGate Titan sub has had comments along the lines of PHN being bereft after the death of his beloved wife and having stated in front of witnesses that being taken out by an implosion at depth, especially (edit: near ) his beloved Titanic, would be his ideal death. Not saying the guy had a death wish or was immune to the Kool-Aid/Flavor Aid everyone on staff was chugging to be able to turn up to work each day, but he seemed like he was at peace with his possible demise. (However imo that was his own stuff to work through and it was irresponsible of him to have lent an air of legitimacy to that whole shit show, however passively)

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u/OkAdvisor6680 1d ago

And the retired French Navy officer and explorer Paul-Henri. Doubt he was a billionaire. Though he should have known better than to get in that POS sub.

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u/Grand-Jellyfish24 1d ago

Your comment is kinda weird because this "kid" (which was actually an adult) was set up to take on his father empire, I don't know why you would side him. Your line on who is dead inside and who is not is blurry.

The only non-billionaire in this submarine was the French explorator guy that was the Titanic specialist

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u/XBacklash 1d ago

Because he didn't make this situation and by reports didn't want to be in it. We don't know if he would have inherited the money and actually some good with it.

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u/ZootAllures9111 16h ago edited 16h ago

none of them were billionaires

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u/OkPalpitation4976 1d ago

I know this is Reddit and “capitalism bad!” is like one of the easiest ways to get a bunch of likes, but a rich dude building his own submarine and then dying on a private trip he created entirely himself as experts repeatedly warned him that it wasn’t safe has nothing to do with capitalism.

He died from stupid. He was not killed by an economic system.

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u/patrickwithtraffic 1d ago

Died by hubris, funded by capitalism

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u/ConfoundingVariables 20h ago

It was a business that charged $250,000 per seat. He was doing it for money, and the people who were riding it (save one) were very much only there because their unimaginable wealth (and hubris - they’re not the kind of people who have to consider risks) allowed for it.

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u/9volts 23h ago

I disagree, and I think you have a way too positive view of capitalism.

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u/oOtium 1d ago

And the cheapskates who failed to invest properly into the Chernobyl reactor died from Communism.

Grow the fuck up

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u/WinOk5004 1d ago

This is almost as deep as the sub was

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u/b0w_monster 1d ago

Pretty deep

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u/noah_dobson 1d ago

Reddit moment

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u/MysticalSushi 1d ago

Russia has private subs as well..

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u/CmdNewJ 1d ago

The deadliest disease with a 99% fatality rate.

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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 23h ago edited 19h ago

What part of Capitalism is it where he charged people for a service that was 100% optional. He was driven by ego. He didn't need the money to get by or anything. He had an MBA from Princeton and had worked @ McDonnell Douglas before going a venture capital group. His ego of thinking he was the smarter than everyone else , and his drive to become famous is what lead him to cut corners and ignore advice.

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u/Dagordae 1d ago

Only if they knew what was going to happen.

And if they knew that they wouldn’t have gone in the first place. They lack the ability to see the future, the first time they would know it was a problem was when it happened and they were instantly reduced to meat slurry.

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u/blondebuilder 1d ago

I mean, they had to be aware of the risks. They were taking an experimental sub to extreme depths where it's well known that implosion is a realistic risk. Minus the son, I think arrogance and oversight clouded all of their reasoning.

The irony is that's the same mindset is what led to the Titanic being down there...

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u/Hogabog217 1d ago

You could say the same thing anytime someone decided to drive a car or ride a plain. Theirs risks associated with all of them, and honestly the kind of idiot to pay for a deathtrap like that submarine also strikes me as the type to not actually know about how dangerous what they’re about to do is

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u/blondebuilder 1d ago edited 23h ago

Right, but the difference between cars/planes and this is that it’s usually necessary to function in life, they have tons of safeguards/regulations, and have been tested/refined over the past century.

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u/Hogabog217 1d ago

Remind me how many deaths are caused by car accidents a year. I mean i agree that the submarine was a deathrap but so are automobiles theyre just a 2000 pound deathtrap moving at over 80mph that weve gotten used to/ has become too essential.

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u/blondebuilder 22h ago edited 22h ago

I think you're misunderstanding my point. Transportation is necessary, so we accept its risk by getting in a car/plane. The danger is real, which is why we have TONS of laws and safeguards to minimize that risk.

That submarine ride was unnecessary, extremely risky, and the makers of the submarine disregarded all existing rules/safeguards around submarine safety at the expense of corner-cutting "innovation", then failed to sufficiently test it, which ultimately what led to loss of innocent life. Just reckless behavior all around.

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u/atomicspacekitty 1d ago

But you’d literally never ever know it happened

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u/Free_Strawberry9542 1d ago

Here comes the stupid petty condescending replies.

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u/thymoral 1d ago

They didn't know they were going to die

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u/trainurdoggos 1d ago

I’d argue opposite. If I was gonna go willingly

Give me something to smoke, drink, maybe a chair, maybe Bluetooth speaker for some relaxing music. If I know I’m goin out, I’ll go out enjoying myself. No one says you gotta go down in a sterile black dark metal tube. Go in class.

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u/blondebuilder 23h ago

Wait, are you in he submarine in this scenario or just sitting down somewhere and then someone spontaneously just...uh...unalives you?

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u/Namaste_Life 1d ago

He was speaking about dying in general not about these passengers....

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u/Manler 1d ago

Something about just existing and then it's cut to black without even knowing is more terrifying than coming to terms with your death to me.

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u/DarkFlutesofAutumn 1d ago

Idk. I'm currently in treatment for cancer and have actually been ENORMOUSLY grateful that even if it ends badly, at least I had months to get stuff sorted and make my peace where I could. It's MILES better than dying in three minutes on some rain and oil slicked interstate after a car crash.

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u/tumsdout 1d ago

So when you see someone dying of disease at old age are you like "man if only you imploded violently in a sub 45 years ago"

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u/Prize-Bug-3213 1d ago

To them, they didn't implode 'violently'.

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u/tumsdout 20h ago

I'd rather take the extra 45 years

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u/subs_on_a_sailboat 1d ago

I'd prefer to see my death coming and embrace it like a friend when the time comes.

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u/RedditAppSuxAsss 1d ago

You Dont, it's painful, it's suffering, it's slow and traumatizing.

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u/subs_on_a_sailboat 1d ago

Don't tempt me with a good time 😉

I've seen enough people die that I know how I wanna go

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u/RedditAppSuxAsss 1d ago

Me too....

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u/YLCZ 1d ago

Anything where you meet certain death in under a minute is better than dying of cancer. Falling out of the sky from a plane, Eaten by a lion, falling in an elevator. Shot by a robber. As long as you meet quick death it's a minute of suffering and then you are free. It's the people with long chronic illnesses or who undergo torture that suffer. I'm not saying I want any of these but it's the cancer or stroke that scares me more than any of these violent endings.

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u/Flush_Foot 1d ago

Or from drowning, had the leak been much slower

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u/Small_Pirate_4971 23h ago

I want to know I’m going to die. I don’t like the idea of suddenly dying and having no idea it even happened.

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u/Fast-Nefariousness80 19h ago

Hubris is a disease!

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u/DesolateRuin 19h ago

Everyone's gotta go some day.

Few of us are lucky enough to go instantly, with no time for fear or pain.

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u/DontClickTheUpArrow 1d ago

Yeah I’m sitting here thinking that seems like a decent way to go!

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u/Gullible-Constant924 1d ago

Yeah maybe we should put an anchor point deep in the ocean and let terminally ill people get pulled under in a capsule with a known point of failure at an adequate depth to accomplish this seems like a good way to go. You could actually have it have a top point as well and call it’s the death Gondola. Alright I’ll see my way out

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u/Poor-Life-Choice 1d ago

They definitely had a fair few minutes of sinking in the dark, well aware of what was about to happen