this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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Some journalists did a story on this thing a while ago and it got lost for about 5 hours. During this time one of the reporters asked if it had some kind of beacon or transponder to locate it in situations like this. Their reply was something along the lines of “oh yeah that’s probably a good idea.” They never added it.
The lack of an emergency transponder is their biggest problem, followed shortly after by the inability to exit without outside help (which is literally what killed the Apollo 1 crew over 50 years ago). Next up, as pointed out in another thread, is that the sub is made of extremely brittle materials because that makes it lighter. Honestly, using off the shelf components for the controls doesn't worry me nearly as much as those other issues.
The more I hear about this the more I'm shocked that this death trap was allowed to operate at all! It seems on the level of that bear suit guy, super dyi energy but with no real use case.
You want to be more shocked? The pilot was the CEO. He was willing to risk everyone's lives and his own on this folly.
There was a video from some reporters that were given a ride I saw someone linked earlier, which included them having to sign a waiver that among other things stated that one acknowledges that the sub is an experimental vessel not certified by any regulatory body. So from the sound of it, there is nobody to regulate these things that would tell them no. I suppose given how rare civilian submarines are, let alone ones that take passengers, there probably hasn't been much need