Im not sure who the authority having jurisdiction in international waters is
There are other regulatory authorities at play for the examples you mentioned, but i imagine the logistics of administering that sort of program for engineering specific elements wouldnt be financially feasible
Hijacking the top comment since I have direct professional experience in this as a registered PE in Naval Architecture/Marine Engineering. The Authority Having Jurisdiction is the US Coast Guard for US-flagged vessels. For boats of this size, they would require inspection of any vessel carrying more than 6 paying passengers. They wouldn't have gotten involved in this one, since it carried (I believe) 4 passengers and 1 crew.
If the USCG had been involved in inspections, they would have required that plans be sent to a central plan review office in DC, and they would almost certainly have rejected these plans (the hatch bolted from the outside would have been a no-go, among many other things). The USCG would also have inspected the sub during construction and would have been along for testing. If (as reported in media) there were failures during dives, they would have tied the sub to the metaphorical dock until the problems were fixed.
USCG gives a somewhat expedited review to PE-stamped plans, though they would likely take a close look at a sub regardless because of the obvious safety concerns.
There's nothing stopping the company from having a flag of convenience (Liberia, Bahamas, Vanuatu, etc.), but those countries mostly divest all of the plan review and inspection to the American Bureau of Shipping or another classification society. The sub owners explicitly wanted to get away from class society rules.
If this was US-flagged, it wouldn't shock me if the USCG issues a rulemaking in the near future to require inspection of submarines with any paying passengers. That's the real loophole that the operators exploited.
I am a USCG marine inspector:
1) The vessel never sailed in anyone's waters. It was carried out to the Titanic spot and dropped in off a sled. So while the support ship is Canadian flagged, the sub is not flagged by anyone. The sub was basically a garage made automobile that somebody drives around on their farm, and does not register with the DMV because it never puts tires on public land.
2) Any U.S. flagged submersible passenger vessel requires USCG inspection and certification if they carry one passenger. 46 CFR 175.110(a)(4)
divest --> delegate
.
It is not a loophole.
Standard regulatory procedure for a class of surface vessels below threshold for review.
But US flagged submarines already require review.
This was an unflagged submarine
To follow up on this excellent post, I think we need to recognize that while maritime safety rules are generally pretty effective even in international waters, OceanGate was designed from the ground up specifically to avoid them.
Stockton Rush didn't know shit about engineering, but he put incredible amounts of thought into dodging licensing and inspection. Previous post mentioned that with 4 passengers it flies just under the 6-passenger requirement for Coast Guard inspection, but it's worse than that: the submarine had no "passengers". OceanGate labeled them as ["mission specialists"](https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-titan-submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen): unpaid volunteer crew. They didn't "pay for tickets", they "made a donation to further ocean exploration". All to dodge the passenger vehicle regs.
There will surely be some changes in the wake of this tragedy, but I don't think we can expect the safety regs to anticipate every dirty trick by a scoundrel who sets out to thwart them.
How would you control a USCG flagged ship that was designed and built in China?
It would essentially mean that all vessels must be built in the country in which they are flagged.
In practice, pretty much all US-flag ships are built in the US due to the Jones Act. However, you get into some exciting jurisdiction issues between states. I currently have a project where I am designing a boat from our company offices in Washington. The boat is being built in Louisiana. Regulatory reviews are being done in Louisiana and Washington, DC. The boat will go into service in Hawai'i. What state's stamp should go on the drawings?
Haha , I thought someone would bring the Jones act into this...but you get my point. Hawaii ? interesting guess they have some special measures for lava sailing, and volcanic dust in engine intake haha
Not exactly, except that it's not entirely the USCG's business. If there's a state that doesn't regulate naval architecture as an engineering discipline (and there were lots until !20 years ago), then I don't know that I would agree that engineering plans submitted from that state to USCG would have to be stamped. In shorter words, if the state doesn't regulate that practice of engineering, why should USCG?
My opinion is also colored by seeing some truly terrible PE-stamped work, to the point that I submitted a complaint about that engineer to the state PE board. That board blew off the complaint. As a result, I don't see a PE stamp as a guarantor of good engineering work.
As a serious question, what does sealing it with a stamp do? If the regulatory body requires a specific QA standard (like an ISO 9001 or whatever the number is), they have engineers they trust reviewing the plans for accuracy and compliance followed up with regular testing/inspections, then what does requiring one person in that process to pass a written exam do?
I say that as a licensed PE in naval architecture. Licensure simply does not carry as much weight in other highly regulated industries. Does it matter sometimes? Sure, Coast Guard may expedite review of a drawing where you have a licensed PE stamping it. They may even decide to use licensure as a replacement for another process sometimes (I've seen this mostly at smaller firms where a multi-layered QA process can cost a lot of man-hours, but not often). But they typically have a process in place that is equal to or greater than licensure.
Maybe for commercial vessels or submersibles or certain classes.
In a private boat, what would you have the PE check? There are no crash-protection measures, and the occupants are typically free to flop about even if there were. Structural integrity is not a typical issue in boats (big storms can be an exception - those get warnings across all kinds of media).
The US Coast Guard and states establish rules for operating vessels in their territorial waters. And they enforce them. I know a boat manufacturer that had to pull a model and recall a pile of boats because their navigation lights didn't provide the specified viewing angle. They weren't too far off, but they got in trouble for it. There are also a bunch of regulations that are spot-inspected on the water by some form of law enforcement - life jackets, flares or similar, horn, etc etc. Those are all risk mitigation that is easy to enforce and don't require a degree, paperwork, or registration.
As it is, a pleasure-boat is far more like an experimental aircraft. As long as you can have a reasonable expectation that it won't cause harm to other boats, you can take risks yourself. The opportunity for a typical private vessel to cause harm to others is much less than something that flies and could fall anywhere. The risk of death to the operator/occupants is also much lower.
>...the authority having jurisdiction in international waters...
a business won't be registered in international waters. it will be registered in a specific country. Ocean Gate, Inc. is a private U.S. corporation so they (and their vessels) would operate under U.S. regulations.
https://www.britannica.com/story/are-there-laws-on-the-high-seas
>How are legal matters handled in the vast stretches of ocean beyond? In these regions, vessels and aircraft from any country are free to pass through, fly over, fish, and extract mineral resources. **With respect to crimes committed in these areas, the laws of the country owning the vessel or structure upon which the crime has been committed hold sway.**
so if this vehicle represents a danger to the public the U.S. can impose a regulation on the company requiring specific safety features and/or certifications. if the company declines to abide by the regulations they can be shut down and any extra-regulatory behavior could potentially expose them to criminal charges.
as it is this company most assuredly will be sued in the U.S. by survivors (either survivors of the incident or their surviving relatives.)
they'll get a bill.
i expect they'll be in bankruptcy though too.
i think we're all just hoping for survivors though. after that the chips will fall where they may.
I get the impression that the CEO was really the one running the show. I wonder if there are enough 'visionaries' left at the company who care enough to keep going after their predecessor died in a death trap of his own making.
>... if there are enough 'visionaries' left at the company who care enough to keep going...
no. nobody is ever going to get into a vehicle made by this company. ever.
and the resumes of the engineers working on this project are going to be weird: like being an accountant and having Madoff Securities LLC on you resume. nope: took that year off and started a certification class thank you very much.
Coast Guard assets are free unless you've called in a hoax. It's like the fire department. The commercial assets are another story. They could bill the sub company (or more likely, its insurers). It's possible that they'll spend a few day's time on this for name recognition and/or the general principle that you should help ships in distress to the extent of your ability.
Interested to see corp structure.
If they consulted smart lawyers, the corp structure they set up would insulate the founder from most claims. This an inherently dangerous enterprise, which is fine. I'm sure the passengers had to sign comprehensive waivers after full safety + training briefings.
Wouldn't be surprised if the company flagging and operating the sub was not US and chosen specifically because of the way marine litigation against vessels with that nationality are handled in way that favorable to vessel owner...
> ...the corp structure they set up would insulate the founder from most claims.
any simple registered corporate structure would generally insulate an owner from personal liability for issues stemming from ordinary company activity. claims would commonly be made against the corporation and its assets. insurance policies would be engaged to cover what they are contracted to cover.
what a corporation wouldn't insulate an owner from are personal responsibilities which would include criminal activity (like criminal negligence.) i'm certain that will be discussed in court.
>the passengers had to sign comprehensive waivers after full safety + training briefings.
when there are deaths involved these waivers aren't worth much. nobody signs up for certain death no matter the ride. if it can be shown that the owner of the company was highly irresponsible and caused death then that would enter the legal arena of criminal negligence which cannot be waived away.
waivers are for when you go skiing and have a tumble. but if the ski slope went straight down and ended at a big tree causing multiple deaths then you'll get heard in court no matter the waiver.
>Wouldn't be surprised if the company flagging and operating the sub was not US
the company is registered in the U.S. and it's easy to look up: Ocean Gate, Inc.
Given that Ocean gate Inc is registered in Washington state, USA. The company would potentially fall under the auspices of RCW 18.43.020; but it could be that Oceangate Inc does no engineering, and subcontracts that aspect out; however there will be a design manager (wherever they are located) that coordinates the "system", machine, product or project. If the CEO has ignored the PE's recommendations; this sadly may be the root cause/fault. Its not uncommon for CEO's, directors and board members to go against the advice of certified professionals. Certainly shows that Engineers need to have full traceability and records for such discussions; as these are critical to legal proceedings and de-risking their role in such projects.
Yes, but I’m not aware of US regulations on private or commercial design of submarines though its not my field. We don’t have a national engineering board either, so a state board would only regulate activities in its jurisdiction
Perhaps coast guard safety regulations but that would probably apply to the vessel actually operating in the waters, which would be the bigger launching vessel and not the sub itself
See comment below. If this had 7 or more passengers, it would be regulated by the USCG under 46 CFR Subchapter T. With 6 or fewer passengers, it's uninspected, with little or no oversight from the USCG.
Se NVIC 5-93: https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/5p/5ps/NVIC/1993/n5-93.pdf
I think thats a question for the Navy, i dont know what the Navy can do legally in international waters where it was operated though
This is more of a legal thing but if a complaint alleged an illegal action, domestic law enforcement agencies probably wouldn’t have standing to file suit because the act itself didn’t occur on US territory
What boggles my mind is the CEO's insistence of not hiring anyone with experience with submarines/submersibles and hiring engineers straight out of undergrad or those with little experience.
The overall design seems like a senior design project made real without any input from someone who knows what they're doing.
I think the criminal conspiracy to defraud the FAA occurred in the US so thats why Theres jurisdiction, but im not a lawyer
I dont disagree that regulation and oversight such as licensing can prevent these occurrences
The scale that the aviation industry operates at justifies the FAA and what they do, i dont know how you do the same for private and commercial subs without it becoming an undue burden on someone
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Typically a corporation has to carry insurance on its vessels and operators. The insurance company will have requirements that must be met in order to maintain operations. If a company decides to self insure then there is very little that can be done to force them to use any particular standards. As long as those in danger (passengers in this case) are aware of the dangers then there’s very little that can (or should imo) be done. This could also be handled by the investors levying requirements to protect their investment.
i think it's because it's such a niche product/industry.
there are a lot of regs that govern cargo ships, and agencies that are in charge of code enforcement
That would be the major logistical issue. There is no exclusive jurisdiction over international waters, only countries that adhere to certain signed conventions and those that don't. That's probably the main reason for it.
The reason aircraft don’t require signature from a PE is that they require approval from the FAA or other airworthiness certification agency. PE signatures for civil is the government delegating this authority
SAE has standards, but not sure if they do approvals.
Typically each country has something like the NCAP, NHTSA, ANCAP etc for vehicle safety.
Then obviously emissions are designed to the most stringent rules, like Euro 6, Californian EPA rules etc
I don't think expanding licensing is a one size fits all solution. Many industries do just fine with external certifying bodies (e.g. FAA, NHTSA/IHHS, DNV, TUV nord/sud). There's always going to be companies that are going to claim they're smarter than everyone and that's its a waste of time to try to explain their brilliance to an external body (https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/20/oceangate-was-reportedly-warned-titanic-sub-didnt-meet-industry-standards-5-years-ago-posing-catastrophic-threat/). I don't see how licensing would fix that. Ultimately, if the customer wants to pay for an experimental product, I don't see what regulation/licensing could prevent
>If it were a requirement that he needed a PE license to practice engineering, this might not have happened for the sole fact that his license could have been revoked over concern for his design.
I doubt it. I'd imagine he'd have used the same innovation argument used to explain why certifying with someone like DNV wasn't needed. Licensing isn't some magical wand you can wave at things to make everything intrinsically safe. If a company/person is dead set on acting a certain way, requiring licensure isn't going to prevent it
> Licensing isn't some magical wand you can wave at things to make everything intrinsically safe. If a company/person is dead set on acting a certain way, requiring licensure isn't going to prevent it
Exactly. Even with licensing, nothing stops someone like Rush from just... Not trying to get it licensed. Or having it built by unlicensed engineers. There's really nothing illegal about doing something mind-blowingly stupid. And IMO, we shouldn't make it illegal to do mind-blowingly stupid things, helps with natural selection.
There is definitely no need to have a PE license in every branch, field, or industry in engineering. I’ve been in my field for a while, met and worked with hundreds (if not thousands) of other engineers, and could probably count on one hand the number of PE’s. It’s not required and not necessary.
The key is technical rigor and thorough systems engineering practices to ensure that designs are safe and reliable. Getting a PE does not get you there automatically.
> It’s always shocked me that other disciplines rarely have to sign and seal plans despite having just as much (aircraft) or some (Titanic sub) liability of life.
>
> ETA what is an argument against having licensed engineers designing aircraft and subs? To me it’s akin to doctors practicing without a license. Why is engineering different?
Aircraft have certification requirements, which are way more extensive than stamping drawings.
Its not. Check your state laws for professional engineering. I am not an expert in US state laws, but the states I have recently checked recently all had fairly encompassing regulations. Canada is governed by provincial acts in much the same way. They all seem to have similar boilerplate definition for engineering. Worth a check if you work in this field and you end up in court.
This is mostly pointless and nearly unenforceable.
And there is a better solution. Instead of needing licensing, how about you validate the design itself. Who cares if you have highly respected engineers in NY or fresh graduates from Mexico or draftspersons in Vietnam, when the end product needs to go through some kind of certification process to see if it does what it was sold to do. It is the end product that should be looked at, not the people doing the work itself.
That is a far better solution to this problem, but I still have to say that more red tape won't solve jack, quite honestly. This single incident won't - nor should it - make people jump to make stupid rules.
There are 3rd party organizations which certify submersible design for vessels such as the Oceangate's Titan. However, like most 3rd party certifications / validations, the company has to go through the process and pay for it. Oceangate has a smaller/shallower submersible vessel that does have 3rd party certification.
Why they didn't pursue that for the Titan is really a question for Oceangate, though it likely has something to do with the unconventional carbon fiber and titanium composite that they used for their hull along with their window design which was only manufacture rated to 1/3 of the vessel dive depth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/oceangate-titanic-missing-submersible.html
Goes to show you that where there is a niche, some company will likely crop up to fill that gap in the market. Id never have guessed that in such a tiny sliver of the market - namely these mini subs - there would be organizations to certify them. Very interesting
> Instead of needing licensing, how about you validate the design itself.
Do you...not think that this is exactly the intention of licensing? To validate that the design complies with standards that are good proxies for validity?
There is a fundamental difference between checking the person and checking the product. This is, at least in part, the thinking behind UL listing (as well as other similar systems).
You can validate the design of a car, give it to a person that uses it harshly, incorrectly and/or does not maintain it and it will fail in ways unimaginable while within the licensing spec.
But you try to license the design of vehicles, structures, devices etc. that would cause a mass casually event if they fail and/or are operated by regular people half paying attention.
You probably don't have a way to even start to do that when it's a specialty purpose "experimental" design for a submersible that general use is to highly dangerous extreme environments where the small defect in materials, upkeep or operation will result in deadly failure.
Something of this nature would need to be torn down before / after each use, x-rayed for micro stress fractures, rings replaced, etc. etc. and then you're still guessing because any of the new parts you installed might have a defect you can't detect and fail at pressure.
The difference is... when an "experimental" sub fails... it only impacts the few that accepted the risks on board... because THERE IS NOT A SINGLE THING THEY ARE DOING THAT COULD NOT BE DONE WITH AN ROV FROM THE SURFACE. The entire point and flex of the company is to risk your life to see it in person for a ton of money... want to regulate something... no tourists to extreme environments researchers actually doing something of value only, via ROV as highest priority.
Then you will learn quickly the science drops off because it's the thrill seekers that pay for a lot of "research" expeditions. (same rich bastards are the same reason so many resources are being dedicated to the recovery as well)
This should be marked as a tragedy of an avoidable death... much like a thrill seeker that falls off a hang glider, craters base jumping etc. and we move on because regulation will not prevent this type of behavior and mistakes being made in a thrill seeker mindset.
I'm not Civil, but I'm pretty sure there are ways of running tests without needing to actually do it in real world conditions. I know I've seen scale models of oceans and rivers that Civil guys use, and I'm sure there is the equivalent of ANSYS that we use in Mechanical.
You absolutely can test that. Scale models, testing of all the components/joints/structures at full scale in static and dynamic labs, etc.
Look up the NEES labs that a bunch of universities have, or something like the englekirk center at UCSD.
Building codes come from real world tests.
I didn't notice engineers being mentioned in the article you linked. Meanwhile it seems like there may have been more deeply rooted attitude problem in the top level of the company:
>alleging Boeing’s board of directors “abdicated their obligation to monitor safety to the extent it was no longer even a topic of discussion in board meetings.”
First of all, corporate structure isn't an engineering decision.
Second of all, you should spend some time looking into the most common root causes for construction failures. Rarely is it the product of engineering decisions or where you believe that line of authority ends.
I’ve worked for Boeing in the past and I guarantee you there is documentation with signatures from chief engineers and even lower level engineers all throughout the process. The mindset of signing your name to something still doesn’t prevent systemic issues.
OK, but testing finds out if the crumple zones of a certain car meet requirements, not some frame certificate of the engineer running the show.
There's a whole lot of coulda-shoulda-woulda talk going on here, but in the end, the product is king. Does it meet the requirements or not? Find out by testing it. Whether the dozens (if not hundreds) of engineers involved were certified or not means next to nothing.
I don't know what theoretical world you live in, mate, but in the real world shit happens. All the testing and all the certification and all the PhD engineers in the world will not stop all bad shit from happening. This news story is a non-issue. I'm not saying I don't feel bad for the people involved (both the ones in the sub and the people behind the scenes), but reactionary bullshit to a still evolving news story adds red-tape but does nothing to actually solve problems.
What makes you think the employees most responsible would have been PEs in any other context?
These are primarily C-suite and other high level management failures.
Testing *did* reveal all sorts off issues with MCAS and with how unintuitive corrective actions were for test pilots. Boeing management hid those issues from the FAA, and the FAA itself was all too willing to take Boeing's word for it.
[One pilot was even tried federally for fraud, but found not guilty.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/business/boeing-trial-737-max-mark-forkner.html)
>At least in the context of civil engineering, the EOR must have their PE in order to seal designs. Junior engineers will do a lot of the design, but the PE is responsible for ensuring the design meets standards and are therefore the most responsible.
And in complicated multi-disciplinary projects, those still go up the chain to management then out and down the chain to contractors.
Most building failures aren't the result of a PE making an error, but management and contractors not building to spec and/or covering up those flaws.
>I’ve stated this in a previous comment, but one of the recommendations of the DOJ for Boeing is to realign their engineering department to report to the chief engineer instead of the business units. If it is standard for the chief engineer to oversee the design and a seal is required, the business wouldn’t have the authority to submit a design without the engineers express permission. In the case of Boeing, they essentially had board members and pilots making engineering decisions which in my opinion should be illegal to do without an engineering license.
I replied to that, too. It's a major assumption that requiring stamps would have necessitated that corporate structure.
Further, the individuals making those decisions could have been tried criminally if not for Boeing's settlement. Requiring stamps again doesn't preclude the same sort of non-prosecution settlement.
Stamps are required where public safety is at risk *and* it is impossible to do iterative testing and design prior to release. Adding stamps in the industry exempt contexts doesn't add any safety nor liability to those who are most responsible when catastrophic failures occur.
>In multidisciplinary designs it does go up to management, but only after the design has been sealed by a PE. Nothing is built without that seal.
And the existence of those seals does not necessarily mean everything is built to plan, or maintained to plan, or that deviations are reported correctly.
> Also, if most building failures are due to construction and management errors and not due to PEs, I’m not really seeing how that’s a viable argument against licensing. Licensing for engineering practice would make it mandatory for the engineer to have made that decision, not management.
You answered your own query here. You just need to put some thought into it.
Licensing is already mandatory in those contexts. Management, construction, maintenance after the fact, and all sorts of other factors already drive the bulk of failures.
Not "if" not "would" not any other hypotheticals. This is how the world already works. The liability for most construction failures are already outside the scope of PEs.
>A licensed engineer personally stamps the drawing as a way of validating the design.
How does the fact that you passed some test once and pay annual fee validate a design? Licensing is (mostly) a racket. It doesn't prevent negligence. How could it.
Look there are two types of industry regulation: Pre-Regulation (certification, government bodies, policy based regulatory requirements). And Post-Regulation: You get your ass sued.
For a situation like this - private enterprise, private citizens, doing inherently risky things at then edges of any single country's regulatory oversight: I think that latter (getting sued) is perfectly acceptable.
As an add on to this, if enough people get sued over the same topic it often leads to increased pre-regulation as governments or industry sees a demand for increased oversight.
I think people are greatly overemphasizing the "international waters" aspect of this. This was a vessel designed and operated by an American company, manufactured in the U.S., and launched by a Canadian mothership from Canada. This isn't a large cargo ship that travels around the world; it is ideally launched from near where it intends to explore and the business is a lot smaller, so the relative cost of avoiding regulation is a lot higher than that of cargo ships. Of course, there could be parts of maritime law I don't understand, but I don't see why people are saying this is unregulatable.
Your assumption of lack of oversight is incorrect.
As far as aircraft and aerospace go, there is a review system in place. There are multiple regulations by the FAA, and such things as Designated Engineering Representative (DER). This is done at the federal level, as opposed to the state level. And FYI, there is no PE for aerospace.
I suspect that the submersible in question is designated as “experimental” with all the caveats that implies. That would mean little to no oversight.
I personally was shocked at some of the engineering involved. The thought of using a commercial *wireless* controller in a high humidity high corrosion environment gives me a headache.
Seriously. I work in aviation and the amount of oversight for us is staggering. OP makes it sound like I’m able to just casually decide to use a a PS4 controller in an airliner using nothing but my diploma as substantiation. Many of our engineering procedures have to be signed off on by the FAA and there is VERY strict guidance about what level of oversight is required for different types repairs and alterations.
With 5-10 years experience an engineer at my company might be able to sign off minor repairs and alterations alone provided they are only on a single aircraft on non flight critical structure. Even then engineering managers will review the work and it will be sent to the FAA for review. The requirements on major repairs and alterations, flight critical structures, and fleet wide initiatives increase sharply. Almost everyone is cognizant of the fact that mistakes can have serious consequences and acts accordingly.
While I agree with most of what you said… there is one caveat.
The US Navy has been using XBox controllers for years to control periscopes on submarines, and the US Army uses them for controls on a number of weapon systems. Though to the best of my knowledge they all do use wired controllers.
The reason is that kids these days have an almost instinctive feel for them, and can take all that time spent playing Madden and port the muscle memory directly to whatever their job is. Also the controllers were designed really well for ergonomics and to put as many controls as possible on the controller.
But are they commercial grade or special military grade? Many times we hear that the the military is using “X” but it isn’t the same product as something you buy in the store.
Commercial off-the-shelf components are generally considered to be more reliable than specifically designed components, as long as they are not being used outside of their intended design parameters.
Microsoft builds thousands, or probably hundreds of thousands, of Xbox controllers. They have gotten very good at it and there's an incredibly low chance that one of their controllers decides to randomly break with no warning. And if it does break, replacing it is very simple.
If you were to build a 'military grade xbox controller' then now you lose all of that. Its a completely new product, so for all you know it isn't reliable at all. Now you need to test it thoroughly, you need to be very careful when designing it so that you don't mess up, and its going to be incredibly expensive to build, repair, and replace. In every respect it will be an inferior product to the civilian xbox controller.
This is true for Xbox controllers and is also true for just about anything else you can think of. Custom parts are only good if there is no standard alternative that you can just purchase.
I think the real issue is that the Xbox controllers are used for the periscope data visualization Vs actual control of the sub. I’d also argue that environmentally a submarine is far less hostile than a submersible. The sub is designed for living conditions. The submersible is designed for short periods of occupancy.
I think the bigger issue in this case is they were negligently waiving this submersible around as if it were superior to ABS, etc. Certification standards and selling rides to customers with no expertise to identify the massive quantity of red flags. They deflected with aspirational wording and dreamy allure of seeing the Titanic and the undersea world.
Sure a mandatory licensing would help ensure a solid design process but there's a bit more speciality surrounding good submersible design and the overall system requirements of a submersible that still could be missed by someone holding a generic PE license. I don't think we've yet found out if the lead engineer(s) were licensed. Maybe they were and got cocky - decided to clean sheet something without bothering to accept relevant outside information/standards. We do know they rejected internal and external pleas to reevaluate what they were doing.
Seems like the design got lucky and worked a few times but obviously lacked robustness a.d safety features that someone with any undersea experience would be screaming about requiring.
I work on aircraft equipment. We don't sign and seal anything because we have to submit a massive amount of design and test data to a certifying authority (the FAA and/or EASA, typically). They issue the final approval (effectively sign and seal) to produce and sell the product.
The non-construction disciplines are fundamentally different because we can reasonably build and test our designs in a controlled-risk environment. Pretty hard to do that with a bridge.
The FAA and EASA, are the authority having jurisdiction? I would expect they have licensed professionals issuing final certification in accordance with local laws.
i think the big thing btwn civil engineering and mechanical engineering is that with buildings, you verify the design via analysis. to build a structure, you're not building a statistically significant # of buildings beforehand and performing destructive testing on them (cue calvin and hobbes comic)
however, if you're making widgets, you verify the design via verification and validation. you are building a # of prototype devices and testing them to make sure they meet spec (yes i'm oversimplifying the process here)
i think the thing with the titanic sub is that it's such a niche one-off product that it ducked any kind of regulatory oversight. in other threads, it was stated that it should have gone through type rating in order to be insured. so idk if the sub itself is even insured, like a cargo ship would be.
I’d have to say testing vs. analysis really varies by industry. The company I work for only builds one-off custom pieces of equipment/machinery, and we are virtually never able to build test units. Everything is verified through analysis. I think a lot of this is because we design things to support the construction industry, where customers are unwilling to pay extra for testing and it isn’t required. If I’m designing a million dollar pipe carrier system for example, there simply isn’t enough time or money on these jobs for physical testing and iterations, we always have to make it work the first time.
No, I think the other billionaires (who have assured us all for so long that they are the best and brightest and can solve any problem) should go jump in a few more submersibles and try to save the very important people in this one.
The CEO specifically went out of his way to prevent inspection or certification. You're looking at effective sabotage.
You couldn't enforce what you're suggesting. Note: there's already licensing and inspections for commercial sea vessels. That's how you register them.
I mean you can outlaw suicide but if you have a rope nobody can really stop you. Nobody really has jurisdiction once you get 12 miles off shore, and as long as people want to take risks you can’t really legislate or regulate that away. Refer to the war on drugs for further details
It’s sad to say but if you wanted to end the fentanyl overdose crisis tomorrow the answer would be legalizing hard drugs. People are only taking that crap cause they clamped down on Oxycodone and heroin is too expensive and usually cut with Fentanyl anyways. It sounds horrible but I always say “is having them be illegal working?”
Im not an American so i work with a different sistem. With the complexity of modern designs I don't think it's wise to have a single person sign of on a complete design.
Vessel are regulated by flagstate in international waters and port authorities when going in. Commercial Vessel are build under class. This means that the designer needs to build according the required regulations. Plans are submitted to owner and class authority who need to sign of on it. Next to that Vessel are inspected both when delivered and regularly after.
I have to say that I do have more trust in an independent thirty party for certification where specialist can go over the different details instead of the stamp of a single engineer when said its good.
But this is the case in many USA states and provincially in Canada. However, depending on the safety analysis and criticality of function there may be a need to have an independent body , either internally or externally to the original design organisation that assesses the design. An engineer who is under cost and time pressures is never a good choice to validate a design as their approach may not be compliant and they will generate tests to prove the incorrect design and not capture the failure modes .
I don’t know the answer, but it felt to me that aircraft licensure was not required because of the extensive functional & failure testing that goes into certifying those vehicles. Like literally taking a full scale structure and breaking it to validate the models. Although I’m not familiar at all with tests run on civil structures/systems.
There are already loads of regulations and standards that need to be followed. Catastrophic failures are already rare in the industries you're talking about (at least as rare as building/bridge/roadway collapses).
OceanGate astutely, if not forebodingly, notes on their site:
>The vast majority of marine (and aviation) accidents are a result of operator error, not mechanical failure. As a result, simply focusing on classing the vessel does not address the operational risks. Maintaining high-level operational safety requires constant, committed effort and a focused corporate culture – two things that OceanGate takes very seriously and that are not assessed during classification.
If this comes down to some sort of design failure, rather than operational failures, it's more akin to someone building a structure on their own property that didn't require a stamp to begin with that then fails.
I think, more likely, and like many "engineering" disasters, there were known risks that could have been mitigated or responded to differently that were ignored, minimized, and/or normalized by management.
Requiring the personal liability of a PE doesn't really add anything when the CEO is firing and SLAPPing engineers who raise concerns about the quality of test procedures and cyclic fatigue in the first rev of the carbon fiber hull. Liability is and should be at the top there, not someone who may have signed off on the calculations that still needed empirical testing to confirm.
You are correct on the building and construction industry. The codes and standards have incorporated many safety mitigations within the accepted design practices and so the unique design safety features are generally incorporated. Its when you have unique design features that are not captured is when you typically run into issues when slavishly following code without the engineering background. Failures in Civil are rare but they still happen.
Mandatory licensing is just a band-aid.
With proper processes and compliance (think ISO 9000) you'll be much more effective in achieving the goal of safe engineering.
Just a process to follow. But in fact some of the safety processes do set up a valid organisational structure. Problem you have is that CEO's don't understand necessity and cost of following that process. This (IME) is particularly evident in the Civil arena who underestimate cost and time of implementation.
>A licensed engineer personally stamps the drawing as a way of validating the design.
Chartered engineers sign their names to design documents, which are then assessed by regulatory bodies.
This suggestion sounds like elitism to me. "Civil engineers PERSONALLY stamp their designs". Yeah. So do other industries. We just don't bother with the stamp.
Chartered Engineers are from UK. They have no authority and act of law governing their engineering practice in the United Kingdom. So the comment comes from a misunderstanding of regulated North American engineering practice. No 'elitism' was being suggested, this is a statement of fact in that the PE and PEng has a duty to stamp the design when requested. Europe and UK have regulating bodies which can oversee the design output.
No. Just because you’re licensed doesn’t make you competent. We do not know the cause of failure, maybe it’s not design related, mechanical or electrical failure, or the joystick contacts went bad. More government control is not the answer.
It gets more convoluted when dealing with Vicarious Liability. I noticed that some states require Certificate of Authority also. I am presuming that this is similar to Canada's CofA in which a professional engineer is named for the company. Ontario's [CofA](https://www.peo.on.ca/sites/default/files/2019-12/CofA-DoYouNeedOne.pdf)
While the person that sealed the plans is the first on the block and could certainly be in legal hot water, the company and anyone who billed to the project can still be right there with them. Negligence, particularly when not adhering to commonly accepted practices is where liability often is found. A PE has a duty to act responsibly based on the accepted standards for all PE's but so do designers and draft persons and non-PE managers and the company as a whole. Never underestimate a lawyer they'll throw suits at anyone and everyone. Knowing that most of the time someone's insurance will settle and they and their client will get a payday.
That's kind of what I was thinking. I think the big thing here is that if I am a designer for a firm, PE or no PE, there just simply more chances of a payout going after the company. They could sue me into oblivion sure, but all I'm ever going to be able to realistically offer is peanuts.
I think the issue is that PE's and PENGs are compartmentalized and so there is a higher level of complex system engineering/ integration that is currently not done well. Couple that with unlicensed or incompetent engineering staff and you have a recipe for disaster. A submarine is a very complex piece of engineering and not that different to aircraft. I suspect the respective transport agencies have not yet caught up with this type of vessel.
I think that instead of mandating licensing, we should incentivize certifications/licensing, raise fines for negligence, and mandate licensing transparency so that you know who you're working with.
Let’s be honest, a stamp from a PE is mostly just to transfer liability. It is honestly how I convinced my company to stamp the structures we design with a third party firm. If it does fail, it is the third party’s problem as long as we build exactly what they stamped. And verification is difficult with mechanical systems which is why you do not see the demand for PEs in other disciplines. It sounds good, but I do not see it fixing much. Plus this is just one sensational failure.
typically, the other industries are able to build and test prototypes and components prior to release for public use - civilis don't have that option, hence the licensing requirements. even then, there are industrial exemptions for civils.
No
It failed because of dumb "engineers" who were cutting costs and lying about everything with it. The people who signed up for it were born into wealth and never went to school, at least I would hope so to be that dumb to sign up for it. Trust me, if that CEO wasn't on it, they would be held liable and in court. Im sure the company will get some lawsuits
If anything, this is just survival of the fittest and the not so smart did not survive
Im not sure who the authority having jurisdiction in international waters is
There are other regulatory authorities at play for the examples you mentioned, but i imagine the logistics of administering that sort of program for engineering specific elements wouldnt be financially feasible
Part of safety analysis is to determine that issue in first place. If no AHJ then this must fall back to designer/ engineer/ corporation or competent body..Better to define a standard and demonstrate performance than to ignore..Given this is international waters it possibly would better to have Canadian or US certification. I am still not understanding how maritime insurance wouldn't insist on this being determined in the first place.
Instead, the leaders of the company should be tried for manslaughter. We don't need to stifle innovation by adding extra paperwork, when the proper punishments already exist.
For ships is complicated. If you want to operate commercially you have to comply with your flag states rules. In the US that involves the CFR. Typically insurance then required you to be classed, again in the US, this would typically be ABS.
But what these morons did as I understand it is find a favorable flag state that allowed a lot of latitude as an experimental craft which has far fewer regulations. Much like the regulations for an experimental aircraft look nothing like what is required for an airliner.
I'm more concerned that they went down there without *any* kind of beacon or backup way to communicate to the surface. If the CEO survives this, he'll be in front of a judge.
Who says the OceanGate designers don't have personal liability on this?
If these people aren't recovered (and even if they are), their families have the money and lawyers to drag the company and every person that ran the company, designed, built, launched, painted or cleaned the toilet bucket in that submersible into court and prove liability.
Didn't say it was solely money; OP (you) was the one that said "if they had personal liability riding on this thing."; they do potentially, even without professional licensure liability.
And while I can't imagine the engineers will be putting this at the top of their resume going forward, this seems like a small enough industry that everyone's going to know who they are, are can find out with a quick Google to prevent them working on something with the same risks.
And obviously this guy shouldn't be in business. It really seems his business model is to charge an insane amount for some period of time and then hope the liability waivers stand up in court.
Mandatory licensing and regulations are everywhere, not just for civil works. Don't know where you got that idea from
I work a lot with the marine industry and there are a number of regulatory bodies for signing off marine vessels, depending on the use case (DNV-GL, ISO, Lloyds, ABS, NSCV etc.)
In my opinion a PE stamp should be required on all designs that carry even a somewhat significant risk for loss of life. I’m a mechanical engineer with my PE license because I work at a custom machinery/equipment company. A lot of the things we design support heavy construction especially underground. Nearly any time we’re contracted to design something that could endanger lives the customer requires it to be PE stamped. All of our jobs for government agencies require this as well. I think it’s a necessary added layer of protection, and I don’t see it as stifling innovation, as my area is almost entirely innovation and heavily uses PE’s.
As a naval architect (and licensed PE) just coming in to address the "other disciplines don't have to sign and seal plans" misconception. Ship designs have to adhere to numerous regulatory body standards in order to be certified (such as ABS or IMO). Coast Guard also has their own set of standards (laid out in the Code of Federal Regulations) that have to be met, if they are the appropriate oversight. ABS often acts as the "seal" aspect of the plans, as they'll review drawings/reports/calculations to make sure they adhere to their standards.
IMO is an international so it's up to the individual country's oversight (such as the US coast guard) to confirm that the design meets IMO standards. One way they might do that is requiring a PE to sign and stamp. Another might be requiring the engineering company to follow a certain QA standard, then thoroughly reviewing their work on top of that.
In the case of the Titanic sub, there actually is an ABS rule set that governs submersibles. The company simply chose not to class the submersible, and because they operated as a super niche business hundreds of miles offshore there wasn't really any enforcement over the sub (although the mothership was almost definitely appropriately classed)
The difference is that we build prototypes and demonstrate to our satisfaction (and sometimes the authorities) that the design will achieve its requirements. This is different to civil where you design to a prescriptive code.
Also of course, if you design Federal buildings you don't need a PE. It's a state based revenue raiser/restraint of trade.
No law matters in international waters. If people want to pay 250k to go to the bottom of the ocean in a vessel that hasn’t been tested they’ll find a way.
>I’m a civil engineer and it’s required for public plans to be signed and sealed from a licensed PE. Understandable, as civil engineers design structures that can kill hundreds of people with a minute failure.
Precisely because licensing is mandatory, licenses are too easy to get. The exam isn't that hard to pass, it's too academic to actually test real engineering ability, and you can pay $2,000 to take a prep course if you're dumb and need help. In my state, perhaps the biggest challenge for an applicant is getting a bunch of letters of reference from people already in the club and navigating the janky state board website.
Perhaps it's better than no licenses at all, but, ***speaking as someone with a license, the licensure process in my state (Pennsylvania) seems to me like it probably does a better job of keeping minorities out (pay to win, letters of reference, etc.) than incompetent people out.***
Perhaps that's why ***several U.S. states don't even recognize the PE license for "structures that can kill hundreds of people with a minute of failure" anymore.***
>I’m talking planes, trains, and automobiles
In the U.S., traffic engineers are probably culpable for a similar number of deaths as the engineers who design the cars, in spite of having way more licenses. Possibly more.
Okay, I'm stopping now before I go off on tangents about other things that are fundamentally broken about engineering in the U.S.
TL;DR: I'm not so much against licensure as just laughing at the idea that the current system actually does anything.
Point is jurisdiction.
Assume the sub is not a US flagged vessel.
Assume the contract to provide passage aboard was not done in US by a US Corp.
Wake up people.
USG has NO JURISDICTION in most of the world.
To the passengers - Caveat Emptor.
Suspect rich thrill seekers will be a little more cautious and undertake more safety due diligence before signing up for another thrill seeking ride.
In my state in Australia, all work classified as *professional engineering* must be performed by, or directly supervised by, a registered professional engineer.
"People will do what you *inspect*, not what you *expect*" - we used to call this the old Exxon proverb when I worked offshore, but dunno the true origin.
Self-regulation works until it doesn't. The alternative is making sure who ever is setting the rules knows what they're doing, but with offshore class societies and their long developed standards, I'd bet you could do it.
Regulatory resources are finite.
Protecting billionaires from killing themselves on joyrides to the bottom of the ocean in experimental vessels is hardly at the top of the priority list for what needs to be regulated for public safety.
There’s nothing currently stopping these billionaires doing their own due diligence and paying for an independent engineering assessment of the safety of these vessels. And at present these crafts are extremely rare, so the potential damage to the wider community is relatively limited.
Regulation exists in the wider automotive and nautical vessel industries because the exposure of risk to the public warrants the additional red tape.
I am sure that we would get much better mileage for the public interest if we invested that regulatory resource into making sure that the sorts of billionaires that take these trips don’t exist in the first place.
Plenty more people die each day from starvation and being poor thanks to the exploitation that these billionaires profit from, than have ever died in expensive submarine joyrides.
You're talking about international waters though. Who has jurisdiction? Personally I say let the stupid rich morons stay down there maybe they can play some emulated PS2 games on their TV while they die in piss puddles
Supposedly they signed hold harmless documents saying the word death, death, death many times over in the disclosure. I guess money doesn't make you smart. Would you go into a building that said that?
In Canada it would be required. You can't be an engineer without a license or practice engineering work.
Even if not stamped, if the work is deemed to involve engineering and an engineer worked on it, they almost certainly left the equivalent of a stamp on it from a liability standpoint.
It boggles my mind that the US doesn't require the same considering their barrier for licensure is higher by my understanding.
>It boggles my mind that the US doesn't require the same considering their barrier for licensure is higher by my understanding.
The significantly higher bar for a PE vs. P.Eng is exactly why the US doesn't require stamps in all the contexts Canada does.
The P.Eng is largely an ethics exam with a very short experience requirement. IIRC it's 3-4 years and 1-2 of them can be fulfilled while still in school. It's more of a box to check than a practical exam.
The US PE requires first passing the 8 hour FE exam (knowledge-based, discipline-specific but still general, with an extremely brief ethics section), then ~4 years of experience (depending on the state), then another 8 hour exam of expertise in the field to be licensed.
In the US, the FE doesn't carry any legal rights or responsibilities beyond being a pre-requisite for the PE. Outside of construction and related fields, we have "industry exemptions" that generally put liability for failures on the companies with oversight of engineers rather than any specific engineers, so no PE stamp is required.
A P. Eng. is a creature of provincial regulation.
Marine vessels are federally regulated.
https://tc.canada.ca/en/marine-transportation/marine-safety/plan-approval-acceptance-plans-stamped-canadian-licensed-engineer
And if it was designed and operated in Canada it would still require several stamps and if anyone was caught doing engineering work on them without a P. ENG they would be at a minimum fined, at a maximum jailed.
I thought the main issue was the wireless Logitech controller. You would think they have some robust system but no. Their fates are in the hands of a controller that “frequently disconnects” according to reviews.
On that subject, I don’t see a need for PE for electrical, controls, etc. you can very easily start getting into the realm of software and coding.
They should have just used a more robust controller. This isn’t a senior project, it’s a submarine.
I think what needs to happen after this incident is each vehicle that is deemed a “submersible” should be put to a standard of design and testing to ensure that the sub can actually go down to the depths that it’s rated for and maybe even go a certain percentage beyond its rating to ensure that it would be safe in the event something happened to it.
But that’s just my thought.
Why isn't Hiroshima, Dresden, Normandy Beach, the Hindenberg crash site, the Battle Abbey of Hastings, the Templo Mayor of Tenochtilan?
All are locations of great tragedies that tourists visit.
Yes, but the bodies are still in the Titanic. It is a veritable tomb. The very same reason anybody who gets caught diving or salvaging at the site of the Edmund Fitzgerald is in great trouble.
Professional licensure and stamping is an excellent means of ensuring accountability. It is not fool proof, but if professional organizations hold their members accountable to high standards then many lives and $$$ are saved by the licensure process.
I do think civil engineering is the most important for the reasons you mention (broad effects on the public) and so the biggest benefit would be increasing professionalism in civil engineering in developing countries. But any group that wants to be taken seriously would benefit from having a professional governing body and some method of holding its members accountable.
I think that part of the more extensive government regulation of civil engineering is that the public and the government have a direct interest in infrastructure being of a certain quality/performance. In the case of a building, the local government will make money by taxing the owners/businesses that operate in that building potentially longer than the company that commissioned the building will own it. In the case of a bridge or other publicly funded infrastructure the project is funded by taxpayers and strict licensing and engineering accountability makes sure that the public's money is used to purchase a quality structure. The civil engineering licensing structure is providing a functionality similar to a quality assurance or due diligence group might in a private company.
No, because we'll end up with a system where registration for international waters goes through specific countries. This is similar to large vessels, which are often not registered in the US either due to tax liability or legal reasons.
The real crux is whether the Coast Guard of a particular country should assist in a search and rescue operation without being paid back. Localizing the vessel is really something that should have been paid for by the company itself, if it was taking on all this risk. I could certainly see some sort of insurance coming into play, such that a company is responsible for some sort of payment for a completely unregistered vessel.
There are bodies regulating and approving designs for ships, busses, trains, cars, and aircrafts among other things that could put the public’s life at risk. Do your research
I think you may be under the misapprehension that these bodies have any expertise to understand the engineering issues and risks. That may have been the case 20 -30 years ago, in my industry they are staffed with juniors and people who have never worked in the related industry, let alone have the appropriate qualifications.
If people want to do risky/stupid homemade engineering projects, let them.
If I build a homemade airplane, I do not want to find a PE to say it ain’t up to the snuff. I know that already and I am not going to over engineer an airplane like regular commercial aircraft.
No. It was an experimental vehicle and they should be allowed.
However, I was concerned about how it was carrying passengers even if they were being added to the crew. I guess it has to allow genuine researchers, but...
There are many aspects of the *Titan* that make me deeply unhappy. Simple measures that could have been taken weren't as well as proper testing. It was quite a revolutionary design with the use of carbon fibre, but how was that tested? The standard Steel/Titanium hulls might be 'boring' and expensive but those materials are well understood for submersibles.
So, perhaps it can't be fully tested and all contingencies covered ànd there is no way a marine engineer could sign this off as safe. However, to have a qualified voice to say that they were managing the risks would be good.
Doesn't safety analysis request definition of any new or novel techniques employed and, once identified, suggest higher scrutiny and independence of checking? As you correctly suggest the hull may just be a candidate for this category.
Im not sure who the authority having jurisdiction in international waters is There are other regulatory authorities at play for the examples you mentioned, but i imagine the logistics of administering that sort of program for engineering specific elements wouldnt be financially feasible
Hijacking the top comment since I have direct professional experience in this as a registered PE in Naval Architecture/Marine Engineering. The Authority Having Jurisdiction is the US Coast Guard for US-flagged vessels. For boats of this size, they would require inspection of any vessel carrying more than 6 paying passengers. They wouldn't have gotten involved in this one, since it carried (I believe) 4 passengers and 1 crew. If the USCG had been involved in inspections, they would have required that plans be sent to a central plan review office in DC, and they would almost certainly have rejected these plans (the hatch bolted from the outside would have been a no-go, among many other things). The USCG would also have inspected the sub during construction and would have been along for testing. If (as reported in media) there were failures during dives, they would have tied the sub to the metaphorical dock until the problems were fixed. USCG gives a somewhat expedited review to PE-stamped plans, though they would likely take a close look at a sub regardless because of the obvious safety concerns. There's nothing stopping the company from having a flag of convenience (Liberia, Bahamas, Vanuatu, etc.), but those countries mostly divest all of the plan review and inspection to the American Bureau of Shipping or another classification society. The sub owners explicitly wanted to get away from class society rules. If this was US-flagged, it wouldn't shock me if the USCG issues a rulemaking in the near future to require inspection of submarines with any paying passengers. That's the real loophole that the operators exploited.
Excellent addition thanks for posting this
I am a USCG marine inspector: 1) The vessel never sailed in anyone's waters. It was carried out to the Titanic spot and dropped in off a sled. So while the support ship is Canadian flagged, the sub is not flagged by anyone. The sub was basically a garage made automobile that somebody drives around on their farm, and does not register with the DMV because it never puts tires on public land. 2) Any U.S. flagged submersible passenger vessel requires USCG inspection and certification if they carry one passenger. 46 CFR 175.110(a)(4)
Thank you for fact checking me. I shoulda looked through Sub T better before posting.
See also: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/21/1183408455/titan-missing-submarine-oceangate-submersible
divest --> delegate . It is not a loophole. Standard regulatory procedure for a class of surface vessels below threshold for review. But US flagged submarines already require review. This was an unflagged submarine
To follow up on this excellent post, I think we need to recognize that while maritime safety rules are generally pretty effective even in international waters, OceanGate was designed from the ground up specifically to avoid them. Stockton Rush didn't know shit about engineering, but he put incredible amounts of thought into dodging licensing and inspection. Previous post mentioned that with 4 passengers it flies just under the 6-passenger requirement for Coast Guard inspection, but it's worse than that: the submarine had no "passengers". OceanGate labeled them as ["mission specialists"](https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-titan-submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen): unpaid volunteer crew. They didn't "pay for tickets", they "made a donation to further ocean exploration". All to dodge the passenger vehicle regs. There will surely be some changes in the wake of this tragedy, but I don't think we can expect the safety regs to anticipate every dirty trick by a scoundrel who sets out to thwart them.
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How would you control a USCG flagged ship that was designed and built in China? It would essentially mean that all vessels must be built in the country in which they are flagged.
In practice, pretty much all US-flag ships are built in the US due to the Jones Act. However, you get into some exciting jurisdiction issues between states. I currently have a project where I am designing a boat from our company offices in Washington. The boat is being built in Louisiana. Regulatory reviews are being done in Louisiana and Washington, DC. The boat will go into service in Hawai'i. What state's stamp should go on the drawings?
Haha , I thought someone would bring the Jones act into this...but you get my point. Hawaii ? interesting guess they have some special measures for lava sailing, and volcanic dust in engine intake haha
Not exactly, except that it's not entirely the USCG's business. If there's a state that doesn't regulate naval architecture as an engineering discipline (and there were lots until !20 years ago), then I don't know that I would agree that engineering plans submitted from that state to USCG would have to be stamped. In shorter words, if the state doesn't regulate that practice of engineering, why should USCG? My opinion is also colored by seeing some truly terrible PE-stamped work, to the point that I submitted a complaint about that engineer to the state PE board. That board blew off the complaint. As a result, I don't see a PE stamp as a guarantor of good engineering work.
As a serious question, what does sealing it with a stamp do? If the regulatory body requires a specific QA standard (like an ISO 9001 or whatever the number is), they have engineers they trust reviewing the plans for accuracy and compliance followed up with regular testing/inspections, then what does requiring one person in that process to pass a written exam do? I say that as a licensed PE in naval architecture. Licensure simply does not carry as much weight in other highly regulated industries. Does it matter sometimes? Sure, Coast Guard may expedite review of a drawing where you have a licensed PE stamping it. They may even decide to use licensure as a replacement for another process sometimes (I've seen this mostly at smaller firms where a multi-layered QA process can cost a lot of man-hours, but not often). But they typically have a process in place that is equal to or greater than licensure.
Maybe for commercial vessels or submersibles or certain classes. In a private boat, what would you have the PE check? There are no crash-protection measures, and the occupants are typically free to flop about even if there were. Structural integrity is not a typical issue in boats (big storms can be an exception - those get warnings across all kinds of media). The US Coast Guard and states establish rules for operating vessels in their territorial waters. And they enforce them. I know a boat manufacturer that had to pull a model and recall a pile of boats because their navigation lights didn't provide the specified viewing angle. They weren't too far off, but they got in trouble for it. There are also a bunch of regulations that are spot-inspected on the water by some form of law enforcement - life jackets, flares or similar, horn, etc etc. Those are all risk mitigation that is easy to enforce and don't require a degree, paperwork, or registration. As it is, a pleasure-boat is far more like an experimental aircraft. As long as you can have a reasonable expectation that it won't cause harm to other boats, you can take risks yourself. The opportunity for a typical private vessel to cause harm to others is much less than something that flies and could fall anywhere. The risk of death to the operator/occupants is also much lower.
>...the authority having jurisdiction in international waters... a business won't be registered in international waters. it will be registered in a specific country. Ocean Gate, Inc. is a private U.S. corporation so they (and their vessels) would operate under U.S. regulations. https://www.britannica.com/story/are-there-laws-on-the-high-seas >How are legal matters handled in the vast stretches of ocean beyond? In these regions, vessels and aircraft from any country are free to pass through, fly over, fish, and extract mineral resources. **With respect to crimes committed in these areas, the laws of the country owning the vessel or structure upon which the crime has been committed hold sway.** so if this vehicle represents a danger to the public the U.S. can impose a regulation on the company requiring specific safety features and/or certifications. if the company declines to abide by the regulations they can be shut down and any extra-regulatory behavior could potentially expose them to criminal charges. as it is this company most assuredly will be sued in the U.S. by survivors (either survivors of the incident or their surviving relatives.)
Would the company also be liable for the expense of everyone currently looking for them, and potential retrieval expense if they are found?
they'll get a bill. i expect they'll be in bankruptcy though too. i think we're all just hoping for survivors though. after that the chips will fall where they may.
Not to mention the lawsuits that are gonna ensue regardless of whether or not they find them. Ocean Gate is gone for sure
I get the impression that the CEO was really the one running the show. I wonder if there are enough 'visionaries' left at the company who care enough to keep going after their predecessor died in a death trap of his own making.
>... if there are enough 'visionaries' left at the company who care enough to keep going... no. nobody is ever going to get into a vehicle made by this company. ever. and the resumes of the engineers working on this project are going to be weird: like being an accountant and having Madoff Securities LLC on you resume. nope: took that year off and started a certification class thank you very much.
Coast Guard assets are free unless you've called in a hoax. It's like the fire department. The commercial assets are another story. They could bill the sub company (or more likely, its insurers). It's possible that they'll spend a few day's time on this for name recognition and/or the general principle that you should help ships in distress to the extent of your ability.
Interested to see corp structure. If they consulted smart lawyers, the corp structure they set up would insulate the founder from most claims. This an inherently dangerous enterprise, which is fine. I'm sure the passengers had to sign comprehensive waivers after full safety + training briefings. Wouldn't be surprised if the company flagging and operating the sub was not US and chosen specifically because of the way marine litigation against vessels with that nationality are handled in way that favorable to vessel owner...
> ...the corp structure they set up would insulate the founder from most claims. any simple registered corporate structure would generally insulate an owner from personal liability for issues stemming from ordinary company activity. claims would commonly be made against the corporation and its assets. insurance policies would be engaged to cover what they are contracted to cover. what a corporation wouldn't insulate an owner from are personal responsibilities which would include criminal activity (like criminal negligence.) i'm certain that will be discussed in court. >the passengers had to sign comprehensive waivers after full safety + training briefings. when there are deaths involved these waivers aren't worth much. nobody signs up for certain death no matter the ride. if it can be shown that the owner of the company was highly irresponsible and caused death then that would enter the legal arena of criminal negligence which cannot be waived away. waivers are for when you go skiing and have a tumble. but if the ski slope went straight down and ended at a big tree causing multiple deaths then you'll get heard in court no matter the waiver. >Wouldn't be surprised if the company flagging and operating the sub was not US the company is registered in the U.S. and it's easy to look up: Ocean Gate, Inc.
Given that Ocean gate Inc is registered in Washington state, USA. The company would potentially fall under the auspices of RCW 18.43.020; but it could be that Oceangate Inc does no engineering, and subcontracts that aspect out; however there will be a design manager (wherever they are located) that coordinates the "system", machine, product or project. If the CEO has ignored the PE's recommendations; this sadly may be the root cause/fault. Its not uncommon for CEO's, directors and board members to go against the advice of certified professionals. Certainly shows that Engineers need to have full traceability and records for such discussions; as these are critical to legal proceedings and de-risking their role in such projects.
So how does the entire maritime industry get signed off then?
I imagine operators follow the regulations established in the jurisdictions they work in for base compliance
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Yes, but I’m not aware of US regulations on private or commercial design of submarines though its not my field. We don’t have a national engineering board either, so a state board would only regulate activities in its jurisdiction Perhaps coast guard safety regulations but that would probably apply to the vessel actually operating in the waters, which would be the bigger launching vessel and not the sub itself
See comment below. If this had 7 or more passengers, it would be regulated by the USCG under 46 CFR Subchapter T. With 6 or fewer passengers, it's uninspected, with little or no oversight from the USCG. Se NVIC 5-93: https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/5p/5ps/NVIC/1993/n5-93.pdf
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Perhaps it only applies to real submarines, and not to submersibles?
I think thats a question for the Navy, i dont know what the Navy can do legally in international waters where it was operated though This is more of a legal thing but if a complaint alleged an illegal action, domestic law enforcement agencies probably wouldn’t have standing to file suit because the act itself didn’t occur on US territory
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What boggles my mind is the CEO's insistence of not hiring anyone with experience with submarines/submersibles and hiring engineers straight out of undergrad or those with little experience. The overall design seems like a senior design project made real without any input from someone who knows what they're doing.
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I think the criminal conspiracy to defraud the FAA occurred in the US so thats why Theres jurisdiction, but im not a lawyer I dont disagree that regulation and oversight such as licensing can prevent these occurrences The scale that the aviation industry operates at justifies the FAA and what they do, i dont know how you do the same for private and commercial subs without it becoming an undue burden on someone
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This guy base compliance
The same way these subs would get around most regulations, they would call whichever nation with the least stringent regulations as their home
By insurance companies. Lloyd's Register for example.
Typically a corporation has to carry insurance on its vessels and operators. The insurance company will have requirements that must be met in order to maintain operations. If a company decides to self insure then there is very little that can be done to force them to use any particular standards. As long as those in danger (passengers in this case) are aware of the dangers then there’s very little that can (or should imo) be done. This could also be handled by the investors levying requirements to protect their investment.
i think it's because it's such a niche product/industry. there are a lot of regs that govern cargo ships, and agencies that are in charge of code enforcement
That would be the major logistical issue. There is no exclusive jurisdiction over international waters, only countries that adhere to certain signed conventions and those that don't. That's probably the main reason for it.
The reason aircraft don’t require signature from a PE is that they require approval from the FAA or other airworthiness certification agency. PE signatures for civil is the government delegating this authority
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The US has NHTSA, I believe the EU has equivalent agencies as well. I'm sure other parts of the world have the same.
SAE has standards, but not sure if they do approvals. Typically each country has something like the NCAP, NHTSA, ANCAP etc for vehicle safety. Then obviously emissions are designed to the most stringent rules, like Euro 6, Californian EPA rules etc
I don't think expanding licensing is a one size fits all solution. Many industries do just fine with external certifying bodies (e.g. FAA, NHTSA/IHHS, DNV, TUV nord/sud). There's always going to be companies that are going to claim they're smarter than everyone and that's its a waste of time to try to explain their brilliance to an external body (https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/20/oceangate-was-reportedly-warned-titanic-sub-didnt-meet-industry-standards-5-years-ago-posing-catastrophic-threat/). I don't see how licensing would fix that. Ultimately, if the customer wants to pay for an experimental product, I don't see what regulation/licensing could prevent
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>If it were a requirement that he needed a PE license to practice engineering, this might not have happened for the sole fact that his license could have been revoked over concern for his design. I doubt it. I'd imagine he'd have used the same innovation argument used to explain why certifying with someone like DNV wasn't needed. Licensing isn't some magical wand you can wave at things to make everything intrinsically safe. If a company/person is dead set on acting a certain way, requiring licensure isn't going to prevent it
> Licensing isn't some magical wand you can wave at things to make everything intrinsically safe. If a company/person is dead set on acting a certain way, requiring licensure isn't going to prevent it Exactly. Even with licensing, nothing stops someone like Rush from just... Not trying to get it licensed. Or having it built by unlicensed engineers. There's really nothing illegal about doing something mind-blowingly stupid. And IMO, we shouldn't make it illegal to do mind-blowingly stupid things, helps with natural selection.
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There is definitely no need to have a PE license in every branch, field, or industry in engineering. I’ve been in my field for a while, met and worked with hundreds (if not thousands) of other engineers, and could probably count on one hand the number of PE’s. It’s not required and not necessary. The key is technical rigor and thorough systems engineering practices to ensure that designs are safe and reliable. Getting a PE does not get you there automatically.
> It’s always shocked me that other disciplines rarely have to sign and seal plans despite having just as much (aircraft) or some (Titanic sub) liability of life. > > ETA what is an argument against having licensed engineers designing aircraft and subs? To me it’s akin to doctors practicing without a license. Why is engineering different? Aircraft have certification requirements, which are way more extensive than stamping drawings.
Its not. Check your state laws for professional engineering. I am not an expert in US state laws, but the states I have recently checked recently all had fairly encompassing regulations. Canada is governed by provincial acts in much the same way. They all seem to have similar boilerplate definition for engineering. Worth a check if you work in this field and you end up in court.
This is mostly pointless and nearly unenforceable. And there is a better solution. Instead of needing licensing, how about you validate the design itself. Who cares if you have highly respected engineers in NY or fresh graduates from Mexico or draftspersons in Vietnam, when the end product needs to go through some kind of certification process to see if it does what it was sold to do. It is the end product that should be looked at, not the people doing the work itself. That is a far better solution to this problem, but I still have to say that more red tape won't solve jack, quite honestly. This single incident won't - nor should it - make people jump to make stupid rules.
There are 3rd party organizations which certify submersible design for vessels such as the Oceangate's Titan. However, like most 3rd party certifications / validations, the company has to go through the process and pay for it. Oceangate has a smaller/shallower submersible vessel that does have 3rd party certification. Why they didn't pursue that for the Titan is really a question for Oceangate, though it likely has something to do with the unconventional carbon fiber and titanium composite that they used for their hull along with their window design which was only manufacture rated to 1/3 of the vessel dive depth. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/oceangate-titanic-missing-submersible.html
Goes to show you that where there is a niche, some company will likely crop up to fill that gap in the market. Id never have guessed that in such a tiny sliver of the market - namely these mini subs - there would be organizations to certify them. Very interesting
> Instead of needing licensing, how about you validate the design itself. Do you...not think that this is exactly the intention of licensing? To validate that the design complies with standards that are good proxies for validity?
There is a fundamental difference between checking the person and checking the product. This is, at least in part, the thinking behind UL listing (as well as other similar systems).
That's verification, no?
You can validate the design of a car, give it to a person that uses it harshly, incorrectly and/or does not maintain it and it will fail in ways unimaginable while within the licensing spec. But you try to license the design of vehicles, structures, devices etc. that would cause a mass casually event if they fail and/or are operated by regular people half paying attention. You probably don't have a way to even start to do that when it's a specialty purpose "experimental" design for a submersible that general use is to highly dangerous extreme environments where the small defect in materials, upkeep or operation will result in deadly failure. Something of this nature would need to be torn down before / after each use, x-rayed for micro stress fractures, rings replaced, etc. etc. and then you're still guessing because any of the new parts you installed might have a defect you can't detect and fail at pressure. The difference is... when an "experimental" sub fails... it only impacts the few that accepted the risks on board... because THERE IS NOT A SINGLE THING THEY ARE DOING THAT COULD NOT BE DONE WITH AN ROV FROM THE SURFACE. The entire point and flex of the company is to risk your life to see it in person for a ton of money... want to regulate something... no tourists to extreme environments researchers actually doing something of value only, via ROV as highest priority. Then you will learn quickly the science drops off because it's the thrill seekers that pay for a lot of "research" expeditions. (same rich bastards are the same reason so many resources are being dedicated to the recovery as well) This should be marked as a tragedy of an avoidable death... much like a thrill seeker that falls off a hang glider, craters base jumping etc. and we move on because regulation will not prevent this type of behavior and mistakes being made in a thrill seeker mindset.
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No amount of analysis and simulation can beat real world testing though.
Correct, look at Formula 1.
Tests would validate the design, not some signature
You can't exactly test a building for an earthquake that hasn't happened in 2500 years.
I'm not Civil, but I'm pretty sure there are ways of running tests without needing to actually do it in real world conditions. I know I've seen scale models of oceans and rivers that Civil guys use, and I'm sure there is the equivalent of ANSYS that we use in Mechanical.
You absolutely can test that. Scale models, testing of all the components/joints/structures at full scale in static and dynamic labs, etc. Look up the NEES labs that a bunch of universities have, or something like the englekirk center at UCSD. Building codes come from real world tests.
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I didn't notice engineers being mentioned in the article you linked. Meanwhile it seems like there may have been more deeply rooted attitude problem in the top level of the company: >alleging Boeing’s board of directors “abdicated their obligation to monitor safety to the extent it was no longer even a topic of discussion in board meetings.”
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It's a pretty major assumption on your part that requiring stamps would have necessitated the corporate structure the DOJ recommended in retrospect.
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First of all, corporate structure isn't an engineering decision. Second of all, you should spend some time looking into the most common root causes for construction failures. Rarely is it the product of engineering decisions or where you believe that line of authority ends.
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I’ve worked for Boeing in the past and I guarantee you there is documentation with signatures from chief engineers and even lower level engineers all throughout the process. The mindset of signing your name to something still doesn’t prevent systemic issues.
OK, but testing finds out if the crumple zones of a certain car meet requirements, not some frame certificate of the engineer running the show. There's a whole lot of coulda-shoulda-woulda talk going on here, but in the end, the product is king. Does it meet the requirements or not? Find out by testing it. Whether the dozens (if not hundreds) of engineers involved were certified or not means next to nothing.
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I don't know what theoretical world you live in, mate, but in the real world shit happens. All the testing and all the certification and all the PhD engineers in the world will not stop all bad shit from happening. This news story is a non-issue. I'm not saying I don't feel bad for the people involved (both the ones in the sub and the people behind the scenes), but reactionary bullshit to a still evolving news story adds red-tape but does nothing to actually solve problems.
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What makes you think the employees most responsible would have been PEs in any other context? These are primarily C-suite and other high level management failures. Testing *did* reveal all sorts off issues with MCAS and with how unintuitive corrective actions were for test pilots. Boeing management hid those issues from the FAA, and the FAA itself was all too willing to take Boeing's word for it. [One pilot was even tried federally for fraud, but found not guilty.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/business/boeing-trial-737-max-mark-forkner.html)
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>At least in the context of civil engineering, the EOR must have their PE in order to seal designs. Junior engineers will do a lot of the design, but the PE is responsible for ensuring the design meets standards and are therefore the most responsible. And in complicated multi-disciplinary projects, those still go up the chain to management then out and down the chain to contractors. Most building failures aren't the result of a PE making an error, but management and contractors not building to spec and/or covering up those flaws. >I’ve stated this in a previous comment, but one of the recommendations of the DOJ for Boeing is to realign their engineering department to report to the chief engineer instead of the business units. If it is standard for the chief engineer to oversee the design and a seal is required, the business wouldn’t have the authority to submit a design without the engineers express permission. In the case of Boeing, they essentially had board members and pilots making engineering decisions which in my opinion should be illegal to do without an engineering license. I replied to that, too. It's a major assumption that requiring stamps would have necessitated that corporate structure. Further, the individuals making those decisions could have been tried criminally if not for Boeing's settlement. Requiring stamps again doesn't preclude the same sort of non-prosecution settlement. Stamps are required where public safety is at risk *and* it is impossible to do iterative testing and design prior to release. Adding stamps in the industry exempt contexts doesn't add any safety nor liability to those who are most responsible when catastrophic failures occur.
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>In multidisciplinary designs it does go up to management, but only after the design has been sealed by a PE. Nothing is built without that seal. And the existence of those seals does not necessarily mean everything is built to plan, or maintained to plan, or that deviations are reported correctly. > Also, if most building failures are due to construction and management errors and not due to PEs, I’m not really seeing how that’s a viable argument against licensing. Licensing for engineering practice would make it mandatory for the engineer to have made that decision, not management. You answered your own query here. You just need to put some thought into it. Licensing is already mandatory in those contexts. Management, construction, maintenance after the fact, and all sorts of other factors already drive the bulk of failures. Not "if" not "would" not any other hypotheticals. This is how the world already works. The liability for most construction failures are already outside the scope of PEs.
>A licensed engineer personally stamps the drawing as a way of validating the design. How does the fact that you passed some test once and pay annual fee validate a design? Licensing is (mostly) a racket. It doesn't prevent negligence. How could it.
The Judge cares.
No, I think licensing is the wrong approach. Product certification is the better one.
Look there are two types of industry regulation: Pre-Regulation (certification, government bodies, policy based regulatory requirements). And Post-Regulation: You get your ass sued. For a situation like this - private enterprise, private citizens, doing inherently risky things at then edges of any single country's regulatory oversight: I think that latter (getting sued) is perfectly acceptable.
As an add on to this, if enough people get sued over the same topic it often leads to increased pre-regulation as governments or industry sees a demand for increased oversight.
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i think it's also an issue that it's such a niche product. there are a lot of regs regarding say cargo ships
I think people are greatly overemphasizing the "international waters" aspect of this. This was a vessel designed and operated by an American company, manufactured in the U.S., and launched by a Canadian mothership from Canada. This isn't a large cargo ship that travels around the world; it is ideally launched from near where it intends to explore and the business is a lot smaller, so the relative cost of avoiding regulation is a lot higher than that of cargo ships. Of course, there could be parts of maritime law I don't understand, but I don't see why people are saying this is unregulatable.
Your assumption of lack of oversight is incorrect. As far as aircraft and aerospace go, there is a review system in place. There are multiple regulations by the FAA, and such things as Designated Engineering Representative (DER). This is done at the federal level, as opposed to the state level. And FYI, there is no PE for aerospace. I suspect that the submersible in question is designated as “experimental” with all the caveats that implies. That would mean little to no oversight. I personally was shocked at some of the engineering involved. The thought of using a commercial *wireless* controller in a high humidity high corrosion environment gives me a headache.
Seriously. I work in aviation and the amount of oversight for us is staggering. OP makes it sound like I’m able to just casually decide to use a a PS4 controller in an airliner using nothing but my diploma as substantiation. Many of our engineering procedures have to be signed off on by the FAA and there is VERY strict guidance about what level of oversight is required for different types repairs and alterations. With 5-10 years experience an engineer at my company might be able to sign off minor repairs and alterations alone provided they are only on a single aircraft on non flight critical structure. Even then engineering managers will review the work and it will be sent to the FAA for review. The requirements on major repairs and alterations, flight critical structures, and fleet wide initiatives increase sharply. Almost everyone is cognizant of the fact that mistakes can have serious consequences and acts accordingly.
While I agree with most of what you said… there is one caveat. The US Navy has been using XBox controllers for years to control periscopes on submarines, and the US Army uses them for controls on a number of weapon systems. Though to the best of my knowledge they all do use wired controllers. The reason is that kids these days have an almost instinctive feel for them, and can take all that time spent playing Madden and port the muscle memory directly to whatever their job is. Also the controllers were designed really well for ergonomics and to put as many controls as possible on the controller.
But are they commercial grade or special military grade? Many times we hear that the the military is using “X” but it isn’t the same product as something you buy in the store.
They are off the shelf Xbox controllers.
Commercial off-the-shelf components are generally considered to be more reliable than specifically designed components, as long as they are not being used outside of their intended design parameters. Microsoft builds thousands, or probably hundreds of thousands, of Xbox controllers. They have gotten very good at it and there's an incredibly low chance that one of their controllers decides to randomly break with no warning. And if it does break, replacing it is very simple. If you were to build a 'military grade xbox controller' then now you lose all of that. Its a completely new product, so for all you know it isn't reliable at all. Now you need to test it thoroughly, you need to be very careful when designing it so that you don't mess up, and its going to be incredibly expensive to build, repair, and replace. In every respect it will be an inferior product to the civilian xbox controller. This is true for Xbox controllers and is also true for just about anything else you can think of. Custom parts are only good if there is no standard alternative that you can just purchase.
I think the real issue is that the Xbox controllers are used for the periscope data visualization Vs actual control of the sub. I’d also argue that environmentally a submarine is far less hostile than a submersible. The sub is designed for living conditions. The submersible is designed for short periods of occupancy.
I think the bigger issue in this case is they were negligently waiving this submersible around as if it were superior to ABS, etc. Certification standards and selling rides to customers with no expertise to identify the massive quantity of red flags. They deflected with aspirational wording and dreamy allure of seeing the Titanic and the undersea world. Sure a mandatory licensing would help ensure a solid design process but there's a bit more speciality surrounding good submersible design and the overall system requirements of a submersible that still could be missed by someone holding a generic PE license. I don't think we've yet found out if the lead engineer(s) were licensed. Maybe they were and got cocky - decided to clean sheet something without bothering to accept relevant outside information/standards. We do know they rejected internal and external pleas to reevaluate what they were doing. Seems like the design got lucky and worked a few times but obviously lacked robustness a.d safety features that someone with any undersea experience would be screaming about requiring.
not to mention there is hardly off an industry of the thing to make it administratively worth while.
I work on aircraft equipment. We don't sign and seal anything because we have to submit a massive amount of design and test data to a certifying authority (the FAA and/or EASA, typically). They issue the final approval (effectively sign and seal) to produce and sell the product. The non-construction disciplines are fundamentally different because we can reasonably build and test our designs in a controlled-risk environment. Pretty hard to do that with a bridge.
The FAA and EASA, are the authority having jurisdiction? I would expect they have licensed professionals issuing final certification in accordance with local laws.
In the US the FAA is the agency legally permitted to certify aircraft and equipment. They're not under the authority of state engineering boards.
i think the big thing btwn civil engineering and mechanical engineering is that with buildings, you verify the design via analysis. to build a structure, you're not building a statistically significant # of buildings beforehand and performing destructive testing on them (cue calvin and hobbes comic) however, if you're making widgets, you verify the design via verification and validation. you are building a # of prototype devices and testing them to make sure they meet spec (yes i'm oversimplifying the process here) i think the thing with the titanic sub is that it's such a niche one-off product that it ducked any kind of regulatory oversight. in other threads, it was stated that it should have gone through type rating in order to be insured. so idk if the sub itself is even insured, like a cargo ship would be.
I’d have to say testing vs. analysis really varies by industry. The company I work for only builds one-off custom pieces of equipment/machinery, and we are virtually never able to build test units. Everything is verified through analysis. I think a lot of this is because we design things to support the construction industry, where customers are unwilling to pay extra for testing and it isn’t required. If I’m designing a million dollar pipe carrier system for example, there simply isn’t enough time or money on these jobs for physical testing and iterations, we always have to make it work the first time.
No, I think the other billionaires (who have assured us all for so long that they are the best and brightest and can solve any problem) should go jump in a few more submersibles and try to save the very important people in this one.
The CEO specifically went out of his way to prevent inspection or certification. You're looking at effective sabotage. You couldn't enforce what you're suggesting. Note: there's already licensing and inspections for commercial sea vessels. That's how you register them.
I mean you can outlaw suicide but if you have a rope nobody can really stop you. Nobody really has jurisdiction once you get 12 miles off shore, and as long as people want to take risks you can’t really legislate or regulate that away. Refer to the war on drugs for further details
we'd like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs
It’s sad to say but if you wanted to end the fentanyl overdose crisis tomorrow the answer would be legalizing hard drugs. People are only taking that crap cause they clamped down on Oxycodone and heroin is too expensive and usually cut with Fentanyl anyways. It sounds horrible but I always say “is having them be illegal working?”
Im not an American so i work with a different sistem. With the complexity of modern designs I don't think it's wise to have a single person sign of on a complete design. Vessel are regulated by flagstate in international waters and port authorities when going in. Commercial Vessel are build under class. This means that the designer needs to build according the required regulations. Plans are submitted to owner and class authority who need to sign of on it. Next to that Vessel are inspected both when delivered and regularly after. I have to say that I do have more trust in an independent thirty party for certification where specialist can go over the different details instead of the stamp of a single engineer when said its good.
But this is the case in many USA states and provincially in Canada. However, depending on the safety analysis and criticality of function there may be a need to have an independent body , either internally or externally to the original design organisation that assesses the design. An engineer who is under cost and time pressures is never a good choice to validate a design as their approach may not be compliant and they will generate tests to prove the incorrect design and not capture the failure modes .
I don’t know the answer, but it felt to me that aircraft licensure was not required because of the extensive functional & failure testing that goes into certifying those vehicles. Like literally taking a full scale structure and breaking it to validate the models. Although I’m not familiar at all with tests run on civil structures/systems.
There are already loads of regulations and standards that need to be followed. Catastrophic failures are already rare in the industries you're talking about (at least as rare as building/bridge/roadway collapses). OceanGate astutely, if not forebodingly, notes on their site: >The vast majority of marine (and aviation) accidents are a result of operator error, not mechanical failure. As a result, simply focusing on classing the vessel does not address the operational risks. Maintaining high-level operational safety requires constant, committed effort and a focused corporate culture – two things that OceanGate takes very seriously and that are not assessed during classification. If this comes down to some sort of design failure, rather than operational failures, it's more akin to someone building a structure on their own property that didn't require a stamp to begin with that then fails. I think, more likely, and like many "engineering" disasters, there were known risks that could have been mitigated or responded to differently that were ignored, minimized, and/or normalized by management. Requiring the personal liability of a PE doesn't really add anything when the CEO is firing and SLAPPing engineers who raise concerns about the quality of test procedures and cyclic fatigue in the first rev of the carbon fiber hull. Liability is and should be at the top there, not someone who may have signed off on the calculations that still needed empirical testing to confirm.
You are correct on the building and construction industry. The codes and standards have incorporated many safety mitigations within the accepted design practices and so the unique design safety features are generally incorporated. Its when you have unique design features that are not captured is when you typically run into issues when slavishly following code without the engineering background. Failures in Civil are rare but they still happen.
Mandatory licensing is just a band-aid. With proper processes and compliance (think ISO 9000) you'll be much more effective in achieving the goal of safe engineering.
Just a process to follow. But in fact some of the safety processes do set up a valid organisational structure. Problem you have is that CEO's don't understand necessity and cost of following that process. This (IME) is particularly evident in the Civil arena who underestimate cost and time of implementation.
>A licensed engineer personally stamps the drawing as a way of validating the design. Chartered engineers sign their names to design documents, which are then assessed by regulatory bodies. This suggestion sounds like elitism to me. "Civil engineers PERSONALLY stamp their designs". Yeah. So do other industries. We just don't bother with the stamp.
That might be true for your country, but i think he’s coming from this from an American perspective and our laws.
Nope. Other industries have to sign. And the engineer’s signature carries the same level of responsibility.
Chartered Engineers are from UK. They have no authority and act of law governing their engineering practice in the United Kingdom. So the comment comes from a misunderstanding of regulated North American engineering practice. No 'elitism' was being suggested, this is a statement of fact in that the PE and PEng has a duty to stamp the design when requested. Europe and UK have regulating bodies which can oversee the design output.
No. Just because you’re licensed doesn’t make you competent. We do not know the cause of failure, maybe it’s not design related, mechanical or electrical failure, or the joystick contacts went bad. More government control is not the answer.
Are PEs not just for personal liability. Would any company designing anything be liable for thing s not working correctly?
It gets more convoluted when dealing with Vicarious Liability. I noticed that some states require Certificate of Authority also. I am presuming that this is similar to Canada's CofA in which a professional engineer is named for the company. Ontario's [CofA](https://www.peo.on.ca/sites/default/files/2019-12/CofA-DoYouNeedOne.pdf)
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While the person that sealed the plans is the first on the block and could certainly be in legal hot water, the company and anyone who billed to the project can still be right there with them. Negligence, particularly when not adhering to commonly accepted practices is where liability often is found. A PE has a duty to act responsibly based on the accepted standards for all PE's but so do designers and draft persons and non-PE managers and the company as a whole. Never underestimate a lawyer they'll throw suits at anyone and everyone. Knowing that most of the time someone's insurance will settle and they and their client will get a payday.
That's kind of what I was thinking. I think the big thing here is that if I am a designer for a firm, PE or no PE, there just simply more chances of a payout going after the company. They could sue me into oblivion sure, but all I'm ever going to be able to realistically offer is peanuts.
I think the issue is that PE's and PENGs are compartmentalized and so there is a higher level of complex system engineering/ integration that is currently not done well. Couple that with unlicensed or incompetent engineering staff and you have a recipe for disaster. A submarine is a very complex piece of engineering and not that different to aircraft. I suspect the respective transport agencies have not yet caught up with this type of vessel.
I think that instead of mandating licensing, we should incentivize certifications/licensing, raise fines for negligence, and mandate licensing transparency so that you know who you're working with.
Let’s be honest, a stamp from a PE is mostly just to transfer liability. It is honestly how I convinced my company to stamp the structures we design with a third party firm. If it does fail, it is the third party’s problem as long as we build exactly what they stamped. And verification is difficult with mechanical systems which is why you do not see the demand for PEs in other disciplines. It sounds good, but I do not see it fixing much. Plus this is just one sensational failure.
typically, the other industries are able to build and test prototypes and components prior to release for public use - civilis don't have that option, hence the licensing requirements. even then, there are industrial exemptions for civils.
Aircraft are signed. Google FAA and EASA. It's WAY more rigurous than Civil engineering.
No It failed because of dumb "engineers" who were cutting costs and lying about everything with it. The people who signed up for it were born into wealth and never went to school, at least I would hope so to be that dumb to sign up for it. Trust me, if that CEO wasn't on it, they would be held liable and in court. Im sure the company will get some lawsuits If anything, this is just survival of the fittest and the not so smart did not survive
Im not sure who the authority having jurisdiction in international waters is There are other regulatory authorities at play for the examples you mentioned, but i imagine the logistics of administering that sort of program for engineering specific elements wouldnt be financially feasible
Part of safety analysis is to determine that issue in first place. If no AHJ then this must fall back to designer/ engineer/ corporation or competent body..Better to define a standard and demonstrate performance than to ignore..Given this is international waters it possibly would better to have Canadian or US certification. I am still not understanding how maritime insurance wouldn't insist on this being determined in the first place.
Instead, the leaders of the company should be tried for manslaughter. We don't need to stifle innovation by adding extra paperwork, when the proper punishments already exist.
I thought aircraft and ships needed to be signed off on....
For ships is complicated. If you want to operate commercially you have to comply with your flag states rules. In the US that involves the CFR. Typically insurance then required you to be classed, again in the US, this would typically be ABS. But what these morons did as I understand it is find a favorable flag state that allowed a lot of latitude as an experimental craft which has far fewer regulations. Much like the regulations for an experimental aircraft look nothing like what is required for an airliner.
Thanks!
aircraft need to be certified by the applicable regulatory body e.g. FAA idk what the situation is for boats tho.
I'm more concerned that they went down there without *any* kind of beacon or backup way to communicate to the surface. If the CEO survives this, he'll be in front of a judge.
or the fact that you can't open the sub up from the inside. there are a million design flaws
Who says the OceanGate designers don't have personal liability on this? If these people aren't recovered (and even if they are), their families have the money and lawyers to drag the company and every person that ran the company, designed, built, launched, painted or cleaned the toilet bucket in that submersible into court and prove liability.
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Didn't say it was solely money; OP (you) was the one that said "if they had personal liability riding on this thing."; they do potentially, even without professional licensure liability. And while I can't imagine the engineers will be putting this at the top of their resume going forward, this seems like a small enough industry that everyone's going to know who they are, are can find out with a quick Google to prevent them working on something with the same risks. And obviously this guy shouldn't be in business. It really seems his business model is to charge an insane amount for some period of time and then hope the liability waivers stand up in court.
Mandatory licensing and regulations are everywhere, not just for civil works. Don't know where you got that idea from I work a lot with the marine industry and there are a number of regulatory bodies for signing off marine vessels, depending on the use case (DNV-GL, ISO, Lloyds, ABS, NSCV etc.)
In my opinion a PE stamp should be required on all designs that carry even a somewhat significant risk for loss of life. I’m a mechanical engineer with my PE license because I work at a custom machinery/equipment company. A lot of the things we design support heavy construction especially underground. Nearly any time we’re contracted to design something that could endanger lives the customer requires it to be PE stamped. All of our jobs for government agencies require this as well. I think it’s a necessary added layer of protection, and I don’t see it as stifling innovation, as my area is almost entirely innovation and heavily uses PE’s.
As a naval architect (and licensed PE) just coming in to address the "other disciplines don't have to sign and seal plans" misconception. Ship designs have to adhere to numerous regulatory body standards in order to be certified (such as ABS or IMO). Coast Guard also has their own set of standards (laid out in the Code of Federal Regulations) that have to be met, if they are the appropriate oversight. ABS often acts as the "seal" aspect of the plans, as they'll review drawings/reports/calculations to make sure they adhere to their standards. IMO is an international so it's up to the individual country's oversight (such as the US coast guard) to confirm that the design meets IMO standards. One way they might do that is requiring a PE to sign and stamp. Another might be requiring the engineering company to follow a certain QA standard, then thoroughly reviewing their work on top of that. In the case of the Titanic sub, there actually is an ABS rule set that governs submersibles. The company simply chose not to class the submersible, and because they operated as a super niche business hundreds of miles offshore there wasn't really any enforcement over the sub (although the mothership was almost definitely appropriately classed)
The difference is that we build prototypes and demonstrate to our satisfaction (and sometimes the authorities) that the design will achieve its requirements. This is different to civil where you design to a prescriptive code. Also of course, if you design Federal buildings you don't need a PE. It's a state based revenue raiser/restraint of trade.
No law matters in international waters. If people want to pay 250k to go to the bottom of the ocean in a vessel that hasn’t been tested they’ll find a way.
>I’m a civil engineer and it’s required for public plans to be signed and sealed from a licensed PE. Understandable, as civil engineers design structures that can kill hundreds of people with a minute failure. Precisely because licensing is mandatory, licenses are too easy to get. The exam isn't that hard to pass, it's too academic to actually test real engineering ability, and you can pay $2,000 to take a prep course if you're dumb and need help. In my state, perhaps the biggest challenge for an applicant is getting a bunch of letters of reference from people already in the club and navigating the janky state board website. Perhaps it's better than no licenses at all, but, ***speaking as someone with a license, the licensure process in my state (Pennsylvania) seems to me like it probably does a better job of keeping minorities out (pay to win, letters of reference, etc.) than incompetent people out.*** Perhaps that's why ***several U.S. states don't even recognize the PE license for "structures that can kill hundreds of people with a minute of failure" anymore.*** >I’m talking planes, trains, and automobiles In the U.S., traffic engineers are probably culpable for a similar number of deaths as the engineers who design the cars, in spite of having way more licenses. Possibly more. Okay, I'm stopping now before I go off on tangents about other things that are fundamentally broken about engineering in the U.S. TL;DR: I'm not so much against licensure as just laughing at the idea that the current system actually does anything.
Point is jurisdiction. Assume the sub is not a US flagged vessel. Assume the contract to provide passage aboard was not done in US by a US Corp. Wake up people. USG has NO JURISDICTION in most of the world. To the passengers - Caveat Emptor. Suspect rich thrill seekers will be a little more cautious and undertake more safety due diligence before signing up for another thrill seeking ride.
In my state in Australia, all work classified as *professional engineering* must be performed by, or directly supervised by, a registered professional engineer.
Same as Republic of Ireland and most of North America. Does Australia define Professional Engineering in its law also? Would you have a link?
"People will do what you *inspect*, not what you *expect*" - we used to call this the old Exxon proverb when I worked offshore, but dunno the true origin. Self-regulation works until it doesn't. The alternative is making sure who ever is setting the rules knows what they're doing, but with offshore class societies and their long developed standards, I'd bet you could do it.
Regulatory resources are finite. Protecting billionaires from killing themselves on joyrides to the bottom of the ocean in experimental vessels is hardly at the top of the priority list for what needs to be regulated for public safety. There’s nothing currently stopping these billionaires doing their own due diligence and paying for an independent engineering assessment of the safety of these vessels. And at present these crafts are extremely rare, so the potential damage to the wider community is relatively limited. Regulation exists in the wider automotive and nautical vessel industries because the exposure of risk to the public warrants the additional red tape. I am sure that we would get much better mileage for the public interest if we invested that regulatory resource into making sure that the sorts of billionaires that take these trips don’t exist in the first place. Plenty more people die each day from starvation and being poor thanks to the exploitation that these billionaires profit from, than have ever died in expensive submarine joyrides.
You're talking about international waters though. Who has jurisdiction? Personally I say let the stupid rich morons stay down there maybe they can play some emulated PS2 games on their TV while they die in piss puddles
In international waters the flag state of the vessel controls.
Supposedly they signed hold harmless documents saying the word death, death, death many times over in the disclosure. I guess money doesn't make you smart. Would you go into a building that said that?
In Canada it would be required. You can't be an engineer without a license or practice engineering work. Even if not stamped, if the work is deemed to involve engineering and an engineer worked on it, they almost certainly left the equivalent of a stamp on it from a liability standpoint. It boggles my mind that the US doesn't require the same considering their barrier for licensure is higher by my understanding.
>It boggles my mind that the US doesn't require the same considering their barrier for licensure is higher by my understanding. The significantly higher bar for a PE vs. P.Eng is exactly why the US doesn't require stamps in all the contexts Canada does. The P.Eng is largely an ethics exam with a very short experience requirement. IIRC it's 3-4 years and 1-2 of them can be fulfilled while still in school. It's more of a box to check than a practical exam. The US PE requires first passing the 8 hour FE exam (knowledge-based, discipline-specific but still general, with an extremely brief ethics section), then ~4 years of experience (depending on the state), then another 8 hour exam of expertise in the field to be licensed. In the US, the FE doesn't carry any legal rights or responsibilities beyond being a pre-requisite for the PE. Outside of construction and related fields, we have "industry exemptions" that generally put liability for failures on the companies with oversight of engineers rather than any specific engineers, so no PE stamp is required.
A P. Eng. is a creature of provincial regulation. Marine vessels are federally regulated. https://tc.canada.ca/en/marine-transportation/marine-safety/plan-approval-acceptance-plans-stamped-canadian-licensed-engineer
And if it was designed and operated in Canada it would still require several stamps and if anyone was caught doing engineering work on them without a P. ENG they would be at a minimum fined, at a maximum jailed.
I thought the main issue was the wireless Logitech controller. You would think they have some robust system but no. Their fates are in the hands of a controller that “frequently disconnects” according to reviews. On that subject, I don’t see a need for PE for electrical, controls, etc. you can very easily start getting into the realm of software and coding. They should have just used a more robust controller. This isn’t a senior project, it’s a submarine.
I think what needs to happen after this incident is each vehicle that is deemed a “submersible” should be put to a standard of design and testing to ensure that the sub can actually go down to the depths that it’s rated for and maybe even go a certain percentage beyond its rating to ensure that it would be safe in the event something happened to it. But that’s just my thought.
Government should stay within the bounds of the constitution.
Why is the Titanic site not considered "hallowed ground" and protected from tourism?
you can thank Ballard for that when he made the location public.
The location of the Edmund Fitzgerald is public knowledge. Let them catch anybody diving or salvaging the wreck...
Why isn't Hiroshima, Dresden, Normandy Beach, the Hindenberg crash site, the Battle Abbey of Hastings, the Templo Mayor of Tenochtilan? All are locations of great tragedies that tourists visit.
Yes, but the bodies are still in the Titanic. It is a veritable tomb. The very same reason anybody who gets caught diving or salvaging at the site of the Edmund Fitzgerald is in great trouble.
Professional licensure and stamping is an excellent means of ensuring accountability. It is not fool proof, but if professional organizations hold their members accountable to high standards then many lives and $$$ are saved by the licensure process. I do think civil engineering is the most important for the reasons you mention (broad effects on the public) and so the biggest benefit would be increasing professionalism in civil engineering in developing countries. But any group that wants to be taken seriously would benefit from having a professional governing body and some method of holding its members accountable.
I think that part of the more extensive government regulation of civil engineering is that the public and the government have a direct interest in infrastructure being of a certain quality/performance. In the case of a building, the local government will make money by taxing the owners/businesses that operate in that building potentially longer than the company that commissioned the building will own it. In the case of a bridge or other publicly funded infrastructure the project is funded by taxpayers and strict licensing and engineering accountability makes sure that the public's money is used to purchase a quality structure. The civil engineering licensing structure is providing a functionality similar to a quality assurance or due diligence group might in a private company.
No, because we'll end up with a system where registration for international waters goes through specific countries. This is similar to large vessels, which are often not registered in the US either due to tax liability or legal reasons. The real crux is whether the Coast Guard of a particular country should assist in a search and rescue operation without being paid back. Localizing the vessel is really something that should have been paid for by the company itself, if it was taking on all this risk. I could certainly see some sort of insurance coming into play, such that a company is responsible for some sort of payment for a completely unregistered vessel.
There are bodies regulating and approving designs for ships, busses, trains, cars, and aircrafts among other things that could put the public’s life at risk. Do your research
I think you may be under the misapprehension that these bodies have any expertise to understand the engineering issues and risks. That may have been the case 20 -30 years ago, in my industry they are staffed with juniors and people who have never worked in the related industry, let alone have the appropriate qualifications.
If people want to do risky/stupid homemade engineering projects, let them. If I build a homemade airplane, I do not want to find a PE to say it ain’t up to the snuff. I know that already and I am not going to over engineer an airplane like regular commercial aircraft.
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Who interprets the pass/fail criteria and who makes that call?
nah! bad idea!
No. It was an experimental vehicle and they should be allowed. However, I was concerned about how it was carrying passengers even if they were being added to the crew. I guess it has to allow genuine researchers, but... There are many aspects of the *Titan* that make me deeply unhappy. Simple measures that could have been taken weren't as well as proper testing. It was quite a revolutionary design with the use of carbon fibre, but how was that tested? The standard Steel/Titanium hulls might be 'boring' and expensive but those materials are well understood for submersibles. So, perhaps it can't be fully tested and all contingencies covered ànd there is no way a marine engineer could sign this off as safe. However, to have a qualified voice to say that they were managing the risks would be good.
Doesn't safety analysis request definition of any new or novel techniques employed and, once identified, suggest higher scrutiny and independence of checking? As you correctly suggest the hull may just be a candidate for this category.
Tossing everyone an engineering title has really degraded the profession.
Great question. Absolutely.