Ask A Genius 1479: Titan Sub Disaster Explained: Rick Rosner on OceanGate’s Fatal Engineering Flaws and Deep-Sea Pressure
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/08/07
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss the 2023 Titan sub disaster, highlighting OceanGate’s unsafe design choices, lack of third-party certification, and CEO Stockton Rush’s disregard for safety warnings. Rosner breaks down the physics of extreme deep-sea pressure and why the fibreglass construction was fatally flawed. The conversation contrasts amateur engineering successes like Adam Carolla’s pool project with OceanGate’s catastrophic failure, stressing the importance of rigorous structural testing when human lives are at stake.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, the Titan sub disaster—in theory, it was preventable, based on a new report.
Rick Rosner: You are talking about that fibreglass submersible that imploded in 2023, right?
Jacobsen: Yes, June 2023. The company was called OceanGate—one word. The report found that their safety culture and engineering practices were deeply flawed. There was inadequate design certification, no third-party validation, and poor maintenance protocols. Now the U.S. Coast Guard is calling for stronger oversight of novel submersibles and unregulated deep-sea vessels. What most people do not understand is how brutally difficult it is to design a craft that can survive three miles under the ocean. The pressure at that depth is immense. Every square foot of the hull is subjected to the equivalent of the weight of a three-mile-high column of water. One cubic foot of water weighs about 60 pounds, so you are looking at nearly 15,000 feet of water above you—15,000 times 60. That is 900,000 pounds of pressure per square foot—almost a million pounds. That pressure is exerted evenly on the entire surface of the vessel: top, bottom, sides, everything.
So, they were trying to hold back almost a million pounds per square foot with layers of fibreglass. To make things worse, the structure was not spherical. A sphere is the best shape to resist uniform external pressure because there are no flat surfaces or edges that can buckle inward. That is why eggs are surprisingly strong for how thin they are—their shape distributes stress evenly. The Titanic, for example, did not collapse when it sank because it had lots of openings—portholes, corridors, gaps—that allowed the water to fill it. However, if you have a sealed, pressurized space filled with people and air, the external pressure wants to crush that hollow space instantly. Moreover, that is what happened.
There were reports that the Titan sub made creaking noises on the way down. As they descended, at 1,000 feet, 2,000 feet, and so on, they heard noises—that was the fibreglass structure shifting. That is a massive red flag. The second you hear structural noises at depth, you should demand to be brought back up. I do not know if they would have made it, but continuing the dive was reckless. Honestly, suppose you are going to build a deep-sea sub. In that case, you should make it spherical, build it out of aluminum or titanium, and make the hull at least several inches thick. I do not know the exact required thickness, but you cannot rely on layered composite materials like fibreglass at those depths.
Rosner: What happened when it imploded?
Jacobsen: Once the hull gave way, water rushed in at supersonic speed—literally in a few milliseconds. The people inside were obliterated instantly. Human bodies are not exactly hollow, but they do contain air-filled cavities—lungs, sinuses, and intestines. Under a million pounds per square foot, all of those are crushed immediately. Once the sub’s interior space was no longer hollow—meaning the water had entirely rushed in—the crushing stopped. The external structure, now filled, fell to the sea floor in pieces. That is why the wreckage was not just a flattened ball—it was broken up but still somewhat recognizable. However, the people inside were vaporized, essentially.
Rosner: And the CEO—Stockton Rush—ignored warnings?
Jacobsen: Yeah, he was a reckless guy. Multiple experts warned him about the sub’s design and materials. He dismissed safety concerns as a barrier to innovation. He cut corners. The engineering was flawed.
Rosner: That reminds me—your friend Adam Carolla does a lot of DIY engineering, right?
Jacobsen: Yeah, Adam’s an amateur engineer. He has taken on some pretty insane home rehab projects. In Los Angeles, there are all sorts of weird old houses, some with major structural issues. He once found a former movie star’s home that had a cantilevered kitchen or family room that was separated from the rest of the house. He loved it because the defect made the house cheaper, and he saw it as an engineering challenge to fix.
I want to build a James Bond-style swimming pool—like one he had built where, on the other side of the pool, there is a bar. The back wall of the bar features portholes that allow you to look through and see people swimming underwater. That was a project Adam Carolla took on. Moreover, this is a guy who, by his description, was a terrible student—an underperformer. However, he was able to design a pool with cement thick enough, glass thick enough, and proper rebar support to make it safe and structurally sound.
Moreover, he managed to convince the building inspectors in Los Angeles, which is wild because they make everything take three years. The LA building code is a foot thick. So the fact that Carolla, with no formal engineering background, did competent amateur engineering and got it approved is astounding. Meanwhile, the OceanGate guy—the one behind the Titan disaster—was not qualified.
So you can be a self-taught engineer and do SolidWorks, but not in this case. Carolla started as a carpenter, but he understood the basics. He calculated the pressure per square foot of the pool walls and engineered it accordingly. That someone like him could pull it off, while the guy building a submersible could not, boggles my mind. Especially when the sub trip was for rich people—tickets cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to ride to the bottom of the ocean. One of the passengers was a billionaire father who reportedly pressured his fearful and hesitant son to come along. The kid was right to be scared. When the hull failed, they died in one-fifth of a second.
When you test something for structural failure, you test it until it breaks. In structural engineering courses, students are often assigned to build bridge models. The goal is to support a set amount of weight using limited materials. Then they test how much weight the design can bear before it collapses. It is the same concept at the gym. When you bench press, you load 45-pound plates—or 20-kilo plates in Canada—onto a bar. Now, let us talk about the pressure on that sub.
If the water pressure was nearly 1 million pounds per square foot, and each gym plate weighs 45 pounds, then 1,000,000 divided by 45 equals over 22,000. So, imagine more than 22,000 plates stacked on one square foot of surface. That is how much water pressure was acting on the sub’s hull, per square foot. You had better be sure your design can hold that.
Jacobsen: Good night. I will talk to you tomorrow.
Rosner: Talk tomorrow?
Jacobsen: Thank you very much. I will get some stuff online tomorrow.
Rosner: Thanks.
Jacobsen: Alright. We are back on track.
Rosner: Thank you.
Jacobsen: Thank you.
Rosner: Bye.
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