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RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
The Kiwi who tried to stop the OceanGate Titan disaster
OceanGate's Titan submersible was en route to the wreck of the Titanic when it imploded killing five people on board. Photo: AFP / OceanGate Expeditions The New Zealander who warned about the Titan OceanGate disaster where five people died aboard a submersible en route to the wreck of the Titanic in 2023 says it was something he had long predicted. On 18 June 2023, five people died aboard a submersible which was en route to the wreck of the Titanic - 3800 metres beneath the waves in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Titan submersible, operated by the American tourism company OceanGate, imploded 90 minutes into the journey - killing all passengers. New Zealander Rob McCallum, who himself runs expeditions to remote places through his company EYOS Expeditions. Five years prior to the disaster, McCallum raised concerns with OceanGate about the risks of the vessel's carbon fibre and titanium construction. In March 2018, he emailed OceanGate founder Stockton Rush to warn him about the dangers of their submersible and that he was risking lives. Stockton Rush died in the implosion along with four others. McCallum has a company that has run about 1800 expeditions across all oceans and all continents. "I personally specialise in surface expeditions, that is expeditions from the surface all the way down to 11,000 metres." The Titanic site is very exposed and not sheltered by any land because it is in the North Atlantic and is about 350 miles (563km) offshore, he said. McCallum said he felt sick when he first heard that something had gone wrong with the Titan submersible, but it was something they had long predicted. "As soon as I heard that the sub had gone I knew straight away what had happened, you know I had a call on the day of the implosion to say it imploded and you know the next three days about the media reports about the oxygen count-down were a bit of a mystery to me - but in a way I'm glad that the end was an implosion and not an oxygen starvation scenario." The Titan submersible was made of carbon fibre which is a composite material and was never usually used in manufacturing submersibles, he said. "All of the subs we use are made of steel or titanium and the reason for that is that metals are a consistent material and because they're consistent it means that from an engineering perspective, you can with great accuracy calculate out stresses and pressures and failure points." It was not possible to do that with carbon fibre because it was a composite material, he said. McCallum said all the submersibles that his company used were classed or independently certified but "the OceanGate submersible Titan was an unclassed vehicle". McCallum said he first became involved with OceanGate which developed the Titan in 2009 when his company owned three submersibles. "When OceanGate started the two founding partners used to come down to see our work and to look at our subs and to ask us lots of questions about how you manage a submersible business, where you source staff, how you go about maintenance and that sort of thing." The Titan submersible was made of carbon fibre, which is a composite material. Photo: AFP / OceanGate Expeditions In about 2015, OceanGate's chief executive decided that he would like to go to the Titanic and build his own craft, he said. McCallum said they stopped having contact the following year. "By 2016 when he announced that he wasn't going to build a classed vehicle, it was going to be an experimental craft that had no sort of independent oversight, no third party sign-off - that's when we part ways." There are six main certifying or classing agencies throughout the world which get involved at the planning stage of building a submersible and are involved in making rigourous checks through the entire process including all the trials assessing the vehicle, he said. The Titan was one of only two unclassed submersibles in the world that were doing commercial service, he said. To get a vehicle classed or certified is expensive and costs about 25 to 30 percent of its total build cost, McCallum said. OceanGate could not decide to get the vehicle classed when it was part way through building it, instead to get it classed they would have had to start again and get the assessors involved right from the outset which would have financially crippled the company, he said. McCallum believed Stockton's character also meant he was not able to admit that he was wrong. The company designed the process to work around the legislation, he said. The sub was built in the United States but the company was registered in the Bahamas where the sub was mainly tested, he said. "There seems to have been a miscommunication between the US and the Bahamas about who was keeping an eye on this vehicle." The Titan submersible being towed to a dive location in Everett, Washington. Photo: AFP / OceanGate Expeditions OceanGate had the ridiculous idea that it would assess the hull to ensure it could deal with the depths it was being taken to by using a series of censors around the vehicle to listen to the noises the hull made under pressure, he said. "When they got to a certain point the idea was to relieve the pressure by ascending again. "It's as ridiculous as it sounds, quite frankly if you're listening to the sounds of your hull degrading, you're standing way too close to the edge, I mean this is not the right vehicle to be in this place." McCallum said he sent a series of emails to Stockton Rush in 2017 and 2018 in which he tried to maintain a "professional coolness" on the basis he did not want to cut off communication since as long as they were talking there was a chance that Stockton would listen and change tact. "The letters are polite but they become increasingly more pointed as I sort of lay out all the things that are going wrong and why he's on the wrong path." But "every offer of support was firmly rejected", probably because Stockton was on a path that he could not get off, McCallum said. McCallum said Stockton Rush should take the lion's share of the blame for the disaster as the company's chief executive and the founder and funder of the company, but there were others who enabled him to act the way he did who should be held to account. "By enabled I mean the engineers who are prepared to sign off on something they're not comfortable with, or in a position where you know what their skill set, their experience, their qualifications shouldn't be signing off stuff anyway." A board of directors also seemed to be absent and no one seemed to have the power to say stop, he said. McCallum said there were many ticking clocks prior to the disaster. The first was the decision to build a submersible from carbon fibre using end caps that were made of titanium, he said. "You've got a material that is not suitable for this purpose being mated to two other components that are of a different material." Also, every test model that they made failed and before they predicted it would, he said. "Their operational model failed in a way they weren't expecting." In the final model there was a loud cracking sound which occurred on its 80th dive, about a year before the implosion, he said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
8 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Southland's court appearance
Scenes of Mitre Peak, Stewart Island and Bowen Falls form a background to the Southland provincial court being set up at the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition at Logan Park, Dunedin. — Otago Witness, 21.7.1925 Intern residence urged In conversation with a representative of the Otago Daily Times, Mr H.J. Farrant (chairman) and Mr J.E. Winsloe (secretary) of the Southland Provincial Court of the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition stated that they were highly pleased with the work that Mr Rooney had so far completed on their behalf. The views of Milford Sound, Mitre Peak, Stewart Island and the Bowen Falls were not only attractive, but were true to nature. The artist had excelled himself in the pastoral scene which would occupy a considerable space on the east wall. Mr Rooney had now commenced work on a very fine picture of the Pourakino River. He had also been supplied with copies for reproduction of other Southland scenic views. On the north partition a large space was to be reserved for the purpose of depicting Bluff and Bluff Harbour. Arrangements were being made in conjunction with Otago for the erection of an extensive freezing chamber, so designed as to give each province ample space to display meat, fish, butter, cheese etc under cool storage conditions. Asked if Southland had any other specialised attractions, the organisers replied that it was necessary to retain one or two "trump cards" up their sleeves. The following report by Dr Falconer, Medical Superintendent of the Dunedin Hospital, will be considered at the next meeting of the Otago Hospital Board: "Without a resident appointment in a modern hospital a medical student's training is incomplete. Herein lies an essential difference between American and English methods. After passing the final examination, an English student does not obtain his degree until he has spent a further year in residence in a hospital as an intern, where he is given a course of advanced clinical instruction and learns to apply the knowledge he has previously obtained in the clinical years of his medical course. Any errors he may make in diagnosis or in suggested treatment are corrected, and actually aid in his training. "Following such a training he enters practice after his skill in diagnosis and treatment has been demonstrated — a matter of obvious importance to the public. To my mind no greater present advance could be made in medical training in New Zealand than by carrying out Sir Lindo Ferguson's idea of instituting a 'hostel' for final-year students adjacent to the Dunedin Hospital." Dunedin's new Scout HQ The new headquarters of the Boy Scouts in Rattray street were officially opened last evening. Over 200 visitors were present, including representatives of the Rotary Club and troop committees. The Mayor (Mr H.L. Tapley) addressed those present, and in doing so emphasised the valuable benefit of scoutcraft to the community, and wished Commissioner Meek, his scouters and executive every success in their headquarters. Dr Marshall Macdonald, who has been appointed to represent Otago on the Dominion Council, spoke on the many handicrafts taught to scouts, and emphasised the fact that scouting trained a boy to be loyal to God, to help others and do his best to keep the 10 scout ideals. . Following a humorous "drill down" by the Ocean Beach scouts, the singing of the National Anthem concluded an instructive and enjoyable evening. — ODT, 10.7.1925 Compiled by Peter Dowden
Scoop
10 hours ago
- Scoop
Industry Lobby Group's ‘Fishy' Marine Protection Claims Under Fire
Environmental groups, marine scientists, and iwi representatives have today called out lobby group Seafood New Zealand for its egregious greenwashing of New Zealand's commercial fishing industry. In an open letter published today, the signatories accuse Seafood New Zealand of misleading the public with its repeated and unsubstantiated claims that Aotearoa New Zealand has already achieved the global target of protecting 30% of its ocean territory by 2030. 'Claiming New Zealand has already protected 30% of our ocean is utterly disingenuous and creates a dangerous illusion of progress – when in reality, less than 1% of our ocean is highly protected and our fragile marine species and habitats remain exposed to immense harm,' says Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, Chief Executive of WWF-New Zealand. Seafood New Zealand continues to argue that New Zealand has already protected 30% of its ocean because it counts a type of protection known as 'Benthic Protection Areas' (BPAs). While these areas restrict bottom trawling and dredging on the seabed, they still allow midwater trawling, longlining, and other extractive industrial practices to continue unabated. They fall wildly short of 'highly protected' as defined by internationally recognised standards. Even the Department of Conservation acknowledges BPAs don't protect sufficient biodiversity to meet the standard of a Marine Protected Area. 'These areas were chosen – by industry – because they had little impact on commercial fishing operations, not because they protect biodiversity. Most of these zones were never bottom trawled in the first place - because they're simply too deep for it - and in many of them, harmful industrial fishing practices are still rampant. That's not protection – it's pulling the wool over Kiwis' eyes,' says Dr Kingdon-Bebb. 'Calling BPAs 'protected areas' is a dangerous distortion that risks delaying the urgent action needed to safeguard ocean health. It gives the public and policymakers a false sense of progress while deep-sea corals, seamounts, and vital habitats for our declining native species and key fish stocks remain under immense threat.' Dr Kingdon-Bebb says Seafood New Zealand's continued peddling of misinformation does a disservice to many of New Zealand's commercial fishing companies. Fishing company Sealord, for example, has publicly backed the 30% ocean protection target – and acknowledged the significant effort still needed to reach this goal. 'There are commercial fishing companies genuinely trying to do better, but they're being undermined by an industry lobby group more interested in greenwashing and spin. That needs to change,' says Kingdon-Bebb. Since 1970, the health of some of Aotearoa New Zealand's commercial fish stocks have plummeted. In the Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana, scallop and crayfish fisheries have nearly collapsed. Our country's waters are home to half the world's whale and dolphin species, but 22% of marine mammals are now on the brink of extinction. More species of seabird breed in Aotearoa than anywhere else on earth – but a staggering 90% are now threatened or at risk. 'With our marine life on the brink and New Zealand lagging behind the rest of the world in ocean conservation, we urge Seafood New Zealand to stop overstating the nation's marine protection efforts and instead back meaningful, inclusive, science-led conservation that upholds Māori rights and interests. Our fragile marine environment deserves more than paper parks and poorly executed PR spin. It needs real protection,' says Kingdon-Bebb. The full list of signatories to the open letter include: Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, WWF-New Zealand Dr Russel Norman, Greenpeace Aotearoa Nicola Toki, Forest & Bird Professor Conrad Pilditch, Marine Scientist, University of Auckland Professor Simon Thrush, Marine Scientist, University of Auckland Professor Daniel Hikuroa, Earth Systems Scientist, University of Auckland Vince Kerr, Marine Ecologist, Kerr and Associates Nicola Rata-MacDonald, Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust Duncan Currie, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition Natalie Jessup, Endangered Species Foundation Daren Grover, Project Jonah Anna Campbell, Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust Karen Saunders, Native Bird Rescue James Gibson, BLAKE Tom Karstensen, New Zealand Underwater Association Jenny Craig, Dive Pacific
