As the world recovers from the Titan submersible disaster, Travel Tomorrow explores the incident’s implications for innovators and regulators in this two-part article.
The Oceangate Titan disaster captured the whole world’s attention in June 2023. A crew of five on their way to explore the wreck of the Titanic were believed trapped with limited oxygen deep below the surface of the Atlantic. The world held its breath, until it became apparent that the Oceangate submersible had imploded, killing all on board, probably within hours of setting out on its mission.
As the initial waves of shock and horror subside, questions have emerged about the suitability of the vessel used for these eye-wateringly expensive commercial trips. Was Titan’s carbon fibre hull worthy to withstand the pressure of 375 atmospheres at the depths it visited? How had it been prototyped and stress-tested? What international standards or ‘DNV-GL testing’ did it meet? How thoroughly was it safety-checked before each mission?
These are not the only questions though. Does the Titan story have further implications across other industries that, in recent years, have adopted and mutated the idea of rapid testing and ‘fail fast’ innovation?
1. Titan’s tale
While billionaires were lining up to pay $250,000 each for a trip to the Titanic on Titan, all was not well behind the scenes at Oceangate.
The New York Times reported recently that David Lochridge, Oceangate’s very own former director of marine operations, criticized the vessel as far back as 2018. Upon Titan’s delivery to passenger safety crews, Lochridge raised a red flag, putting in writing: “the potential dangers to passengers of the Titan as the submersible reached extreme depths.” He knew that the Titan’s large viewport, one of the craft’s major selling points, was not fit for purpose: its depth certification fell an alarming 2,700 metres short of what was needed.
In addition, the same year, 38 experts from the Marine Technology Society’s Manned Underwater Vehicles committee issued a no-holds-barred warning letter to Oceangate’s CEO, Stockton Rush. Their meaning is unmistakeable, implicating not just Titan as a vessel, but the company’s research and development practices: “the experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry.”
2. Misleading publicity
These marine industry leaders blasted in no uncertain terms Oceangate’s boasts that the Titan would “meet or exceed” recognised international safety standards, noting: “it does not appear that Oceangate has the intention of following DNV-GL class rules. Your representation is, at minimum, misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold.” Stark words that Stockton Rush and Oceangate did not heed.
The disaster killed Stockton Rush as well as his four passengers but this tragic outcome should not have a ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’ effect on critical reporting. Let’s be clear: there is a pattern of what appears to be at least recklessness, at worst deliberate silencing of concerns here. Whistleblower Lochridge was not only sued by Oceangate, but also fired from his job. At the time of his death, Stockton Rush had reportedly failed to respond to lawsuits by disappointed customers. And it gets worse.
The Titan’s lack of internationally recognised standards testing was allegedly not an oversight, but a choice. Lochridge stated in court documents that his boss’s reason for refusal was money. Oceangate was “unwilling to pay” for the international testing regime. Conveniently, the company’s operations in international waters meant they fell outside of pesky legal interference.
3. Anathema to rapid innovation
In fact, Rush considered the non-standard testing performed by his own company more than sufficient. He repeatedly, actively defended this approach. A 2019 Oceangate blogpost (perhaps tellingly unloadable at the time of writing) claimed openly that independent bodies who apply international safety standards were a hindrance to his company’s inventiveness: “Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation,” it said. Arguably then, Oceangate had such a high opinion of its own research and development practices, it viewed outside experts and regulators as a curse.
And here’s the rub: Oceangate is far from being the only company with such a seemingly disdainful attitude towards independent safety testing and regulation.
4. The rise of ‘fail fast’ culture
The term ‘fail-fast’ comes from systems design. It used to be almost synonymous with the idea of a ‘fail-safe’, or ‘failure prevention’ tripswitch, a built-in mechanism that signals and reacts to a problem, cutting off operations before a costly disaster strikes.
The term ‘fail-fast’ was co-opted by programmers working in an ‘agile’ way: design something, test it, notice the failures, use the feedback to make changes, re-design. Then do it all again. And again – and so on in a cycle.
In this way, the meaning and intention of fail-fast evolved into ‘fail fast, fail often’. Instead of viewing failure as a negative or something to be avoided, failure became something to be viewed positively. Failure, and particularly ‘rapid failure’ was encouraged. The faster you fail, the faster you learn, the faster you can improve your product design through successive iterations. Small failures are less expensive than big ones, enabling small start-ups keen to operate in a ‘lean’ way to change their product before sinking too many resources into it.
5. When failing overtakes iteration
Testing is an integral part of this methodology. You cannot check if something might fail or need improvement without testing it. Innovation therefore requires willingness to experiment and test. But analysts have pointed out that the ‘fail fast’ approach is problematic for various reasons.
Braden Kelley, innovation commentator and advisor to Microsoft and others, notes that while many companies talk the ‘fail fast talk’, the reality is that few of them truly put into place the ‘growth mindset’ that the approach requires. Their employees, often highly qualified and successful people, are reluctant to admit real failure. As a result, they over-test and create overworked prototypes, without exposing themselves to outside scrutiny.
Is this what influenced and emboldened Stockton Rush to stick with his own submersible design and test results rather than risk the findings of an independent assessment?
6. Investment rounds and the myth of the ‘early version’
To avoid this ‘overworked prototype’ or perfectionism trap, companies have become encouraged to release, or at least publicize, early first versions of products. Failure has become celebrated in and of itself, over and above what really matters: iteration.
This methodology and positive view of failure is of course especially convenient if you are looking to raise money from investors without yet being in possession of a working product. Witness the $945 million that disgraced biotech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes was able to raise for her company Theranos, for blood-testing technology that did not exist.
To what extent have tech and other industry innovations exploited the notion of rapid fail fast development at the cost of investors, customers and even the greater good?
