2023-06-24 15:38:40
In 1914, two years after the sinking of the Titanicthe world’s leading maritime nations met in London and approved the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), the most important treaty on the safety of ships and their passengers. With the regulations, revised several times over the decades, have created unified rules about, for example, the number of lifeboats, emergency signals, communications or the obligation to assist. Now, after the catastrophic implosion of the Titan, many experts believe that the time has come for a similar effort to ensure regulation of manned submersibles and, especially, those who, like the ill-fated OceanGate ship, do in international waters and in the deep ocean.
The swampy area in terms of regulations that OceanGate moved into is well known. It did not seek certification or approval by independent entities which are common in the industry. This lack of validation that it complied with the basic security parameters in its engineering is something that has caused alert warnings from experts for years. And it also raises doubts, because these classifications are usually a requirement to obtain insurance.
By operating in the area where the Titanic sank, which is not neither under the maritime jurisdiction of the United States nor that of Canada, and since the submersible is transported to the high seas by a ship, the usual rules do not apply. The company based in the state of Washington did not have to submit to the regulations that would have affected it if it were to make its dives in the territorial waters of one of those two countries, its ship did not have to submit like most submersibles and all submarines to a strict security process and inspections each time they set sail and dock, and they were not required to carry a flag either.
“There is literally no requirement, because there is no one out there who applies it,” he explained. Sal Mercogliano, a former merchant marine and maritime historian at Campbell University in North Carolina, who in an interview with ‘New York’ magazine recalled that it is not for nothing that some call the deep ocean “the outlaw sea”.
Mercogliano cree que probably now both the US and Canada will adopt more regulations, as he explained to ‘The Washington Post’. And he thinks the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the specialized agency of United Nationsyou could take steps to try to make submersibles like the Titan required to register like other ships do, instead of being treated like until now, as cargo of ships that transport them.
The expert assures that, although OceanGate and its Founder and CEO Stockton Rush (who was piloting the imploded submersible) put innovation before any other consideration “the submersible industry wants rulesHe wants standards.” And it has been supported by the comparison with the aviation Industry, remembering how at the beginning of the 20th century, after accidents, governments and associations came together to approve laws “that today make you get into a plane and fly 9,000 meters without thinking about it. There will come a time when you will not think twice about getting into a submersible and descending 4,000 meters”, Mercogliano said, “but we haven’t gotten there yet”.
Human and economic cost
George Rutherglen, a professor of maritime law at Virginia University, has also said he would be surprised if the Titan tragedy were not responded to with more regulation, especially given the resources deployed in the search and rescue operation.
“I would be surprised if any incident with all these costs, both in terms of wrongful deaths and the expensive rescue, does not lead to some initiatives,” he assured in a statement to the Associated Press, in which he estimated that there could be a push to pass legislation in Congress and that the US could adopt measures such as preventing ships carrying unregulated vessels from docking at their ports.
Somehowever, are shown skeptics that there will be changes. Forrest Booth, a San Francisco lawyer, has recalled that “IMO has no authority.” And he has opined that if you try to get states to adopt an international deep-ocean treaty, they will run into the resistance of nations who, for example, want mine in the depths. “I don’t think much of substance will happen when media attention is reduced to this case,” he told the AP.
End to the tourism of depths and the Titanic
The Titan tragedy has also raised voices calling for a pause in tourism in the depths in general and in the visits to the wreck of the Titanic in particular. Among them is that of Michael Guillen, a scientist who almost died when his submersible was trapped near the ‘Titanic’, who to defend that position has recalled on CNN that “The sea is dangerous. It’s not a playground”.
He has also requested that stop Charles Haas the president of the Titanic International Society, a US charity established in 1989 to preserve the history of the iconic shipwreck. “It’s time to cSeriously consider whether crewed voyages to the Titanic should end for safety”, Haas assured in a statement. “There is relatively little left to learn from the wreck and the role of manned submersibles can be assigned to autonomous unmanned vehiclessuch as those who made a detailed high-resolution three-dimensional map of the wreck and its debris field last year.”
“The intensive inspection before deep sea submersible service should be bound by international regulation”Haas has defended. “Just as the Titanic taught the world safety lessons, so should the loss of the Titan.”
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