Life is an adventure that pushes us to take risks to achieve a goal. Risks can be worthwhile but certain ones may be too dangerous and result in fatal loss.
This is evident in the case of the Titan submersible implosion that shocked the world last month. The story piqued my interest as the vessel carried five super-rich adventurers on a dream mission to see a legendary ship under the sea, unaware that their expedition would become a horrible legend itself.
According to the news reports, the 6.7m-long vessel imploded during a sight-seeing trip to the wreck of the Titanic nearly 4km below the surface in the Atlantic Ocean.
The submersible carried five people -- a UK-Pakistani billionaire and his 19-year-old son, a British aviator, and a French diving expert -- all of whom paid US$250,000 (8.7 million baht) for a place on the Titan. The final person was the pilot, who was also the boss of the company that built and operated the vessel but, reportedly, skimped on safety and testing.
It has emerged that dozens of engineering and deep-sea experts had formerly raised concerns over the safety of the Titan to him. But they were ignored.
The pilot called his craft an "innovative submersible" and managed to take passengers to the site of the Titanic wreckage in multiple dives over the past two years -- some with success but many were aborted due to malfunctions. The doomed journey was the first dive this year.
It's hard to know what made the passengers confident that their extreme journey would be safe despite the fact that the Titan had never been approved or certified by any regulatory body. This was made clear in the waiver they signed which also indicated that the trip could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death.
In the wake of the tragic news, one TikTok user shared a video which demonstrates what the implosion of an underwater vessel may look like, showing how it collapsed and imploded within a matter of seconds.
This might give many a chill down their spine imagining what actually happened to the ill-fated men after they lost contact with the mothership less than two hours into the dive.
Many experts believe there must have been some defect on the Titan's hull, which, under water pressure of roughly 422 kg/cm² at the depths where the vessel plunged, caused the craft to collapse and be crushed, ultimately shredding everything.
Some compared the massive pressure to the force of a whale biting a human, while some compared it to the Empire State Building sitting on top of a body.
Both sound gruesome but there was one good thing about this catastrophic implosion. According to the experts, the process occurred incredibly quickly, within just a fraction of a millisecond, before everyone inside would be able to realise what was happening. That means, at least, they died without pain.
The revelation attracted a lot of attention from netizens in Thailand who called the victims fortunate. Many even said that they preferred to die in a similar fashion so they wouldn't have to suffer any pain. I don't know if that would be a good choice but I couldn't help but feel sick at reports that presumed human remains had been found among the Titan debris.
The implosion is said to be the first major accident involving a civilian submersible and many experts agree that the disaster could have been avoided if the company followed the industry's safety regulations.
Formerly described as a "daredevil inventor" by the media, the pilot confessed that he'd broken some rules to make the Titan, citing his own logic and good engineering behind him.
In another interview he gave last year, he openly downplayed all safety warnings about the vessel, saying: "If you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed. Don't get in your car. Don't do anything."
Honestly, I don't know how to feel about the pilot who led his clients and himself to a watery grave. In my eyes, the passengers were like many other wealthy adventure-seekers who didn't have enough knowledge to properly evaluate the risks of boarding his unconventional craft.
Their only mistake was they dared to put their lives in the hands of an overconfident man who turned out to be much more willing to take risks.
Patcharawalai Sanyanusin is a writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.