At this rate, I can see a billionaire stepping on a lego and saying legos need to be regulated.
Only the gooberment can protect us from rich people getting killed private subs. Plz take more of my tax dollars.
In the aviation world, an experimental aircraft may not be used for “compensation or hire”. The only exception is that a kitplane manufacturer is allowed to give demo flights.
Is that true in every country on the planet? Because I doubt it.
United States Federal Aviation Administration, I believe EASA is similar.
So, no, then.
Those are the two I’m most familiar with in my profession, at least as far as civilian authorities are concerned. Can’t really say “no” and, I’m pretty sure neither can you. On the other hand, feel free to prove me wrong with a counter example. :)
Difficult to prove a negative, but I would be surprised if there aren’t at least a few third world countries with lax aviation rules.
The point, though, is that strong regulations in the countries that are inclined to regulate these things aren’t actually going to stop persistent rich idiots from doing stupid things. The Titan was against regulations in every country that bothers to regulate submersibles, which is why it only operated in international waters. More regulations won’t change that, there’s still nobody to enforce them.
No need for regulations, just set a price floor please. Only billionaires allowed.
This. Let them eat shit.
I wonder about the people who would work on the subs, who are basically not millionaires. Would regulation, insurance and such help them have some protection and compensation?
Have the government sell permits for $1M.
Ribbit
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I am calling for less. No billionaire should be stopped from going on an unregulated submarine.
Let them enjoy the deregulated world they created.
Can we just have one law about them not taking their kids, maybe?
Deal
I like Alien more than Aliens.
Sooo brave
Are there that many tourist submarines in the world? Would this even make a difference?
To be clear, it wasn’t a “tourist sub”… so maybe the first regulation should be defining exactly what that is,
The CEO was very careful to skirt applicable regulatory laws. He even called his passengers “crew members”. In the aviation world, I have some experience harmonizing multiple regulatory authorities. Because of “international waters”, there will need to be some agreement and harmonizing of regulations. There’s already SOLAS so, I think it can be done.
The regulations come from the countries that the company is founded in. OceanGate is (was) as US based company.
A “crew member” would be some kind of employee.
Employees don’t pay a company a quarter of a million dollars to do “work” for eight hours. You don’t pay to work, you get payed to work.
Just because you call someone a crew member doesn’t necessarily mean that would hold up in a court of law.
I think if they were alive to sue and be sued… He’d be fucked.
Technically I believe they were classified as employees that “donated” to the company. Nice workaround Stockton! Let’s see how that holds up in court with the obvious gross negligence.
Absolutely.
The issue is that the regulations that do exist allow them to skirt it by not offering a hard, and broad, definitions of ‘tourist subs’.
“And, by the way, watch Avatar: The Way of the Water today on Disney+!”
Avatar: the way of the billionaire
James Cameron actually has a lot of experience in submarine exploration, if any celebrity should be weighing in on this it’s him.
I mean ok
But also has an air of “won’t someone please think of the billionaires”
Like, if some dipshit builds rockets and is offering trips to space for a million dollars and you tried to go to space through this clown and idk, not NASA… that’s kinda on you.
But yeah, sure. Preventable deaths, etc.
I take the radical perspective that people dying horrible pointless deaths is a bad thing and should be prevented. Yes, even stupid rich people.
So brave
Who says this couldn’t eventually become a mass produced product though? I 100% believe it should be regulated, even if I could care less for some of the people that were on board. It still should be maintained so people don’t get sucked into unregulated BS, regardless of who gets on board.
There for sure should be something to regulate the commercial aspect of it, I don’t give a goddamn if some billionaires want to build their own sub, go exploring and die themselves.
But you shouldn’t be able to charge someone or pay someone else to go with/for you unless certain minimum safety standards are met. And you know that’s what these rich asshole will do if given the opportunity
Interesting. What has ja rule say to this?
Didn’t they ignore a bunch of regulatory bodies by claiming the passengers were experts and not tourists? I think throwing more laws at it won;t do much, unless they close similar loopholes.
Yup. He just wants attention.
Mission Specialists.
They were given trivial tasks to perform to justify the title. It was in bad faith and should have rung alarm bells. But I anticipate for the luxury thrill-seeker, they may be accustomed to fancy titles for their trips, and didn’t even really think about it.
The CEO bragged about building the submarine out of used parts and said that regulations were boring. He sealed his fate long before it happened.
I think they ignored standard testing, but this was never made mandatory
They are operating in international waters. Who would oversee these regulations?
There are plenty of mutually agreed upon international regulations that ships, aircraft, etc. all abide by. It’s not rocket science (well there’s that too).
The port from which they launch and the country where the company is registered.
If it’s all done incognito and they fuck up then too bad.
I work in aviation regulatory law but, a friend of mine does work in this arena. I did ask him if my analog existed in the nautical world and he was able to walk me through how he’d managed to avoid any regulatory oversight. There’s SOLAS but, other than that, it’s a gap that apparently needs to be closed.
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems like the subs only operate in international waters. The ships carrying these deep sea submersibles dock at ports, but the subs themselves are cargo until you get out into the middle of nowhere.
