Commenter “sailorcurt” makes a interesting point concerning the Titan submersible when he writes:
Freedom also comes with the responsibility to accept the consequences for those choices and actions.
“Did the waiver that had to be signed by the clients/tourists actually say, “OUR SUB IS NOT CERTIFIED”? And then—perhaps—go on to explain, in detail, the why it wasn’t certified and the risks involved?”
Have you watched the video uncovered where Mr. Rush said, very clearly and explicitly, exactly that? He was leafing through the waiver form reading parts of it and, yes…it explicitly said that his vessel was not certified by any agency or body, that it was experimental and that its use could result in death.
I don’t believe that any of them “deserved” to die for their folly. But with the possible exception of the 19 year old, I don’t feel “sorrow” over their deaths. They weren’t innocent, they chose to undertake those risks freely and willingly. The risks in an undertaking such as this are obvious and clear, there’s no amount of “but Rush insisted it was safe” that’s going to convince me they didn’t understand the dangers they were undertaking.
I have enormous empathy for their families and loved ones…especially the mother of the 19 year old. They are the innocent victims of this tragedy, not the people who willingly put their lives at risk for a thrill.
If the reports that the 19 year old only agreed to go on the voyage to please his father are true, then I do have some sympathy for him. He felt pressured and wasn’t mature enough to resist that pressure. While he was a legal adult and technically responsible for his decisions, he wasn’t willingly accepting the risks, he was pressured to do so and that is worthy of empathy.
I have also seen the relevant waiver language, and a description of the waiver itself:
The three-page document spells out the risks that passengers take when riding in the 23,000-pound Titan, including eye-popping wording such as how the craft “has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and may be constructed of materials that have not been widely used on human occupied submersible.”
You may wonder how anyone could sign something like that. But I submit that millions of us sign something much like that every day, and to a certain extent people have become desensitized to such waivers, which are seen as TL;DR cover-your-ass legalese. The majority of such waivers lie in the medical field and involve procedures and surgery, and a related phenomenon is warning labels on drugs.
The Titan waiver was three pages long; were those pages fine print? Was most of the verbiage boilerplate blabity-blah? We see that quote highlighted and isolated; did they? And what does “may be constructed of…” mean? Was it or wasn’t it? We know that it was not; did they?
Those of us who would not even consider voluntarily going down in a submersible of any sort – and I am one of those people who would not – would also not sign such a waiver, but we wouldn’t be in that situation in the first place. Nevertheless I have signed many medical waivers equally frightening and quite long. The possibility of death is listed there, even for my cataract surgery, plus plenty of other dire possibilities. Sure, I know that most people don’t die of eye surgery, but you know what? As far as I know, the people who have gone down in submersibles to see the Titanic – even this particular submersible – have not died until now. Granted, the n is tiny, but it still would give a false sense of security and might make such a waiver seem to exaggerate the risks as waivers do.
I am not saying that people don’t bear responsibility for what they do. But the main responsibility in this case is with the people who developed the submersible – one of whom unfortunately died in this accident. I say “unfortunately” because to my way of thinking, empathy is a separate thing from blame. Someone can be at fault and still not “deserve” to die – as “sailorcurt” acknowledges in that quote. However, “sailorcurt” also denies feeling “sorrow” over their deaths and adds that they weren’t innocent. With this, I strongly disagree. I do feel sorrow over their deaths and find all but the CEO to be quite innocent. Perhaps they were ignorant of the magnitude of the risks, but they are also innocent in my opinion despite this ignorance. And yes, we need to do our best to have due diligence about discovering the safety of the activities we undertake, but we really cannot know such things for sure and have learned to rely on the expertise of others, the prior safety record of the endeavor, and the fact that waivers state worst case scenarios that usually are only distant possibilities.
One of the things also on that waiver was apparently “that the signer would ‘assume full responsibility for the risk of bodily injury, disability, death and property damage due to the negligence of [OceanGate] while involved in the operation’.” This is unsurprising; waivers often include such statements. In fact, even when my son was little, I had to sign a waiver for every organized sport in which he participated. Little League, soccer, learning to skate, learning to swim – you name it. They all had such waivers about assuming the risk. Having been to law school, I knew such waivers were not usually enforceable, and were placed there to make the ignorant signer think they had signed away such rights – or, of course, in hopes that the harried and rushed signer hadn’t even read them. What I did was add a sentence and initial it, and the sentence said something like: “except in cases of negligence or fault, in which case I retain the right to sue and I invalidate this unenforceable clause” or some such language. Fortunately – very very fortunately – I never had to activate any of this (although my son did sustain some minor injuries, they were nobody’s fault).
And indeed, regarding the strong likelihood of lawsuits over the Titan, there’s this wording:
…and on behalf of myself, my heirs, assigns, personal representative, estate, and for all members of my family, including minor children, I hereby release, waive, and forever discharge OceanGate Expeditions, Ltd. …”
But it’s still possible to sue, depending on the circumstances:
Waivers are not always ironclad, and it is not uncommon for judges to reject them if there is evidence of gross negligence or hazards that were not fully disclosed.
“If there were aspects of the design or construction of this vessel that were kept from the passengers or it was knowingly operated despite information that it was not suitable for this dive, that would absolutely go against the validity of the waiver,” said personal injury attorney and maritime law expert Matthew D. Shaffer, who is based in Texas….
The degree of any potential negligence and how that might impact the applicability of the waivers will depend on the causes of the disaster, which are still under investigation.
“There are so many different examples of what families might still have claims for despite the waivers, but until we know the cause we can’t determine whether the waivers apply,” said personal injury lawyer Joseph Low of California…
OceanGate is a small company based in Everett, Washington, and it is unclear whether it has the assets to pay significant damages, were any to be awarded, but families could collect from the company’s insurance policy if it has one.
Caveat emptor indeed, but I have long thought that, as waivers get longer, more complex, and more frightening, many or even most of us become more and more desensitized to their dire contents. It can all get lumped together – a very distant possibility of harm and a much more likely and catastrophic possibility of harm. You might say, “But in the case of a submersible to go miles down to see the Titanic wreck, surely anyone ought to know there’s a high possibility of harm.” Well, yes and no. As I said, I certainly wouldn’t be going down there. But until now, those who did had a good safety record, although I have had difficulty finding the exact number of people who have done so. This article makes it clear that there have been many expeditions over the decades, but provides no numbers. This article from September of 2022 is somewhat more specific in saying that the number is “fewer than 250,” which suggests to me that it’s close to 250. As far as I know, the Titan was the first accident that involved such dives causing casualties, which could breed a false sense of security despite the language in the waiver.
RIP.
