Missing Titanic Submarine

This post has attracted 150+ comments, the previous GN thread about the migrant boat disaster attracted 31.
The gist of that thread was that the story wasn’t headline news and perhaps should have been, but that idea didn’t attract much support. This morning the sub. story headlined in practically every newspaper. Are some human beings lives more valuable than others?

Germanshepherdsmum

There’s no point in being able to open it from the inside when you’re so far beneath the surface. In fact I’d guess it’s safer not to be able to - someone panicking would be able to kill the rest, like opening a plane door.

Very true.

I remember being in a row of seats on an aeroplane with the emergency door; our 12 year old was next to the door so the air crew moved her and put a man next to the door. However, he was a panicker and kept scrabbling at the door, moaning and it was quite frightening. They moved him away and moved DH to his seat.

Usernametaken, I’m relieved the majority of contributors are expressing compassion for the five humans who are in such desperate need of rescue.
I found your post cruel

Iam64

Usernametaken, I’m relieved the majority of contributors are expressing compassion for the five humans who are in such desperate need of rescue.
I found your post cruel

I am beginning that compassion has a limit for some people.

Perhaps posters didn't contribute to the thread about the boat in the Mediterranean because, as grandparents, the thought of those young children in the water was just too horrifying and sickening. It was too late for them 😥

Callistemon21 you could be right. Once you have expressed horror at the death of those on the boat including the children and queried the actions of the coast guard, there’s not much left to say. Those children are dead.
For me, posting about this submersible is like expressing a hope that those on board will survive.

It made me feel so sick, posting about it seemed almost gratuitous, Mollygo.

Where's there's life, there's hope.

Where there’s life there’s hope - that’s my comforting mantra in all situations ….

Magsymoo The event in the mediterranean that led to such a terrible loss of life was short lived. We were simply told about the event after it happened.

In this case we have an ongoing emergency that is spread over many days. I think if the mediterranean disaster had taken three or four days to happen, the number of posts would be similar. Once everything is resolved, either way, this event will drop off the headlines just as fast as the other disaster did.

Usernametaken After all, we don’t go and visit the site of a plant crash do we. Must be something very wrong with these people imo.

People visit Auschwitz, the Colosseum in Rome and war cemeteries. The Titanic was a remarkable ship and has the same interest to people as Nelson's 'Victory' at Portsmouth and the original 'Queen' liners when they became tourist sites after they ceased to be working liners.

What is the difference?

M0nica

5 or 6 very rich men lost in 3,800 metres of water, on a vanity trip.

Hundreds of drowned women and children lying 5,000 metres deep in the Mediterannean, locked in an overcrowded boat, fleeing from misery and poverty.

This.

Wyllow3

M0nica

5 or 6 very rich men lost in 3,800 metres of water, on a vanity trip.

Hundreds of drowned women and children lying 5,000 metres deep in the Mediterannean, locked in an overcrowded boat, fleeing from misery and poverty.

This.

The rescue mission of course must be done and it doesn't bear thinking about the plight - but our world is a very strange place.

🙏

If the men, women and children were submerged, trapped in a capsized vessel with the possibility of a rescue mission being launched - I believe (and hope) that the media would have been as 'full-on' as they are about this incident. But the overcrowded fishing boat just sank. The inevitability of most of them drowning hardly bears thinking about.

It is the horror of people being entombed somewhere on the sea bed that, it has to be said, is capturing the public's imagination in a ghoulish kind of way - it's the stuff of nightmares.

I don't think anyone is consciously weighing up whose lives are more important - it's the sheer drama of this incident that is keeping it alive in the media. If the submersible had simply imploded and we knew that all of the unfortunate passengers had died, I don't think it would be dominating the headlines in quite the same way.

We are bombarded with such awful news all of the time. I do feel guilty about the way that I react to some things more than others but, if I’m honest it often depends on how I can relate to certain events. I was terribly upset about the young footballer who was in that plane that went missing over the channel. I still get upset when I think about it. Again it was a situation that unfolded over a period of time and he reminded me of my son. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care about other tragedies. Another group of people were lost in a boat capsize yesterday I believe but the situation is so huge and ongoing I don’t really know what I can do because the world just has to stop having wars: I’ve wanted a peaceful world for most of my adult life but it just seems to be getting worse

I am probably being particularly dense but why, if the sub was heading for the Titanic, is the search not concentrating on the wreck itself?

Am I being too cynical but once again most of the newspapers, at least the tabloids, concentrate their headlines on this story this morning. Could it be to distract our attention away from the unfolding financial crisis about to hit us, particularly the young, with soaring interest rates?

I’ve just said my last futile prayers for them and their families.
RIP

Mags, not a nice comment. Five people in horrific circumstances, the world willing and working for them to be saved. Words fail.

People ask what can they do about tragic headlines? You can only do your best to make sure that you and yours make wise decisions about what choices you make in life. Read the book, watch the film but don't go knowingly into dangerous situations. People do have choices still.

AGAA4

I hope they are found safe but all the money being spent on the rescue of people who are made very aware of the dangers seems wrong to me. Surely they can think of better ways to spend a spare quarter of a million.

Totally agree with you. I have been trying in a small way to help animal charities who are rescuing animals in Ukraine and the money spent going to gawp at those unfortunate people's resting place could have gone to better use. It is their money I know but it just seemed stupid and wasteful and now it looks as if it will end in tragedy.

I do feel sorrow because this is a most horrific death, completely unthinkable, but they knew all the risks and were either so arrogant they didn’t believe anything could go wrong for them, or so in need of something new dangerous and different to do that it went over their heads They signed enough declarations to know the dangers How anyone could take their young son at the start of his life into the unknown I can’t imagine
So whilst I feel sorry and upset at their plight I don’t feel the same level of compassion that some of you feel and it certainly doesn’t hit me like those young lads who were trapped in Thailand or the miners in Mexico when my heart went out to them and I lived on the edge of my seat all the time they were trapped I suppose it’s because these men knowingly put themselves in this position whereas the other situations were unfortunately completely out of their control and the same with the migrants that are drowned desperately trying to save their families from horrible dangerous lives I can imagine how I’d do anything to save my family whereas I could never imagine taking them into an unknown dangerous situation just because I wanted new thrills
I have a feeling the capsule will not be found it’s tiny in a huge huge busy and very dangerous ocean

I find it so disappointing to see some of the hard-hearted comments here from those who clearly think that race or wealth has any significance whatsoever in deciding just how “worthy” of rescue these unfortunate souls are. Simply adding, “however, I do hope that they are saved” does nothing to minimize the original, callous assessment, as it can’t be unsaid. Also, those who are trying to play “newsworthiness top trumps” with the Greek fishing boat disaster are not comparing like with like. It's too obvious to have to explain why. As for the pointless, repeated “all this money could have been better spent” comments, see my previous post as to how irrelevant they are.

M0nica

Usernametaken After all, we don’t go and visit the site of a plant crash do we. Must be something very wrong with these people imo.

People visit Auschwitz, the Colosseum in Rome and war cemeteries. The Titanic was a remarkable ship and has the same interest to people as Nelson's 'Victory' at Portsmouth and the original 'Queen' liners when they became tourist sites after they ceased to be working liners.

What is the difference?

Maybe the fact that the Titanic is at the bottom of the ocean, not remotely accessible like the other sites you mention?

How dreadful it would be to be trapped in a thing like that way underwater. Unimaginable horror. 🙏

To be bolted in from the outside and rely on a PS controller to be movef NO WAY!