Missing Titanic Tour Submersible Piloted by Video Game Controller
Who knew video games were this pervasive in the culture? If you haven’t been following the story of the Titanic tour submersible (as I hadn’t until Krista told me about it), here’s the background: A company called OceanGate operates the Titan submersible, a 22-foot-long mini-submarine used to tour the wreckage of the Titanic, the infamous British ocean liner that sank off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, and eventually led to James Cameron winning an Oscar. The vehicle can hold up to four passengers and the pilot and has a tracking ship that monitors and guides it, launching the submersible with four tourists at a time, plus the pilot; a ticket costs $250,000. On Friday, an expedition began, but on Sunday, the submersible lost contact with its support ship, and estimates are that they have less than twenty-four hours of oxygen left. The missing group consists of, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “British businessman Hamish Harding, Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and two members of a Pakistani business family Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.” A massive search is currently underway for the Titan and what everyone hopes are five survivors.
A closer look at the Titan paints a scary picture of what traveling in this thing is like. It’s nine feet high and eight feet wide, meaning passengers are packed like sardines. According to CBS News correspondent David Pogue, who took a trip on the Titan last year, it has decrepit-looking construction pipes for ballasts. The contract you have to sign says that the submersible “has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death.” The guide ship sends text messages to the submersible to guide it to the Titanic wreckage, but things seem to go wrong fairly often, and the submersible gets lost, or dives are canceled. But here’s the real kicker and how it relates to the Geeks + Gamers community: the submersible is controlled by – I swear, I’m not making this up – a video game controller, specifically a Logitech F710. You can see the news report below:
I feel terrible for these people, and I hope they’re rescued, but you have to have your head examined if you agree to get into this thing. The second they mention that you’re at the mercy of a video game controller, you should run for the hills. I know the idle rich need hobbies, but maybe take up something safer like lion taming. Pogue says that one of the members of his group is a lottery winner; if I won the lottery, the craziest thing I’d do is buy a beach house. I think the woman who seems to have dedicated her life to seeing the Titanic’s wreckage and cried when the dive was canceled probably has the emotional and psychological profile of the average customer.
Oh, but there’s more; listen to Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate and one of the missing passengers, talk about how he hires his pilots (courtesy of The Last Refuge):
They eschew age and military experience because they want a young, diverse group. Imagine paying $250,000 to get on one of these things and seeing that your “pilot” is a kid playing with a video game controller. How hard-up for entertainment do you have to be to go along with this?
