 Life Magazine
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DATELINE JUNE 22, 2023 . . . and . . . JUNE 11, 2024: Mr. Wolfstone has been a Titanic aficionado for five decades, and he extends his heartfelt sympathy to the families of the five crew members aboard the Titan submersible (built from carbon fiber) which reportedly imploded while descending to the Titanic wreckage. The Titanic is resting 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean where 6,500 psi (pounds per square inch) of pressure awaits any intruder.
Gary Wolfstone has many years of experience as a maritime lawyer, and he has lectured widely about disasters and personal injuries at sea. The sinking of the Titanic was reimagined in 2012, the 100th anniversary of this tragedy. Today, the apparent implosion of the submerisible with five souls aboard is a stark reminder of the need for safety and regulation of experimental ocean-going-craft like the Titan.
WIRED Magazine (on line June 11, 2024) has researched and published a comprehensive overview of the OceanGate story: The Titan Submersible Disaster Shocked the World revealing how the company's CEO cut corners, side-stepped warnings and lied in a fatal quest to reach the Titantic. (The article was written by Mark Harris.)
According to WIRED, several former employees said they were neither shocked nor surprised at OceanGate's deadly accident. Three people had left the company on safety grounds, and two separately described Titan as a ticking time bomb.
Everything old is new again. These two jarring events - the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 and now the implosion of the Titan submersible in 2023 - have transformed the world community into a global village both at the threshold of the twentieth century and now 112 years after the tragic sinking of the RMS Titanic. Thanks to WIRED, it is an established fact that the OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush, ignored several pointed warnings about safety concerns.
The Past is a Foreign Country
They Do Things Differently There
Charles Hirsberg wrote a provocative article for the June 1997 Life Magazine Special "The Strange Allure of Disasters" which explains that we commercialize and mythologize the horror of what happens to us and sanitize the event by placing distance between us and the event. His theme is accurate and simple. We cannot resist the allure of a catastrophic loss of human life.
Andrew Wilson has supplied us with new and important details with dark tales of the survivors in his recent article, "The Shadow of the Titanic," published in the March 2012 issue of Smithsonian Magazine.
National Geographic Magazine is offering a 100 Year Anniversary DVD Collection of the Titanic tragedy with new theories to explain the vessel's sinking based on modern technology. Disney Studios surely envies the cinematic achievements of this National Geographic DVD collection.
A splendid museum, Titanic Museum Attraction, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee offers a fascinating reinactment of the sinking of the Titanic with artifacts from the vessel. Thomas Hardy's provactive poem, The Convergence of the Twain (1912), eloquently captures the meaning and emotions of the demise of the Titanic.
[ Titanic Belfast Exhibit Opens ]
[ Click on the above photo of the Titanic to explore the Titanic Belfast Exhibition in Belfast, Ireland at the site of the actual construction of the vessel. Titanic Belfast is fast becoming a world famous tourist attraction for Northern Ireland. The Titanic Belfast web site speaks for itself. ]
Lawyers, Disasters, and Money !
Sooner or later, the focus in these kinds of magazine articles tends to shift to a critical examination of lawyers. After the reader is bombarded with information about lawyers, lawsuits, and
extravagant claims, the author leaves us wondering whether the "greedy lawyers" invented the incident in the first place for their own socially venal, selfish purposes.
I commend Messrs. Hirsberg and Wilson for not indulging in this lawyer bashing tactic. The story of the Titanic and its aftermath in the courtroom, however, is vitally important because it illustrates how victims of negligence can be undercompensated.
Titanic Tort Claims Go Begging
The British inquiry under Lord Mersey found that Captain Smith (who went down with the Titanic) had not been negligent.
The claimants who had awaited the outcome of the British inquiry subsequently filed suit in the United States District Court in
the Southern District of New York. The docket for the Titanic case was placed in volume 55 at page 279 and was
captioned: "In re: The Petition of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company" and was assigned to the Hon. Charles M. Hogh.
On July 28, 1916 - slightly more than four years after the Titanic sunk - a decree was signed approving a final distribution of $663,000.
among all Titanic claimants for all claims!
More than 1,500 lives had been lost (of the estimated 2,224 passengers), and this damage award covered all property loss, hull damage, cargo loss, loss of human life and consequential damages.
Legal scholars should be referred to The Titanic, 233 U.S. 718 (1914) for a discussion of the controlling prinicples of law. The limitation of
liability and record of payment are carefully documented in an encyclopedic treatise, Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy, John P. Eaton & Charles
A. Haas (Great Britain, 2nd edition 1996).
Human Life in Dollar Value
Even if the damage award had applied entirely to human life, the award for each person lost would be $442. However, if one subtracts the property damage component, the award for each life would be less than $50. Does $50. accurately express the dollar value of each human life lost on the Titanic? Moviegoers have the opportunity
to watch the Titanic sink for the eighth time on celluloid in a James Cameron film, Titanic, whose production cost of $200 million exceeds the
cost of building the original vessel by more than 27 times. Truth is, there is no logic to a court award which averaged less than $50. per
person for the valuation of the loss of human lives.
The only thing that stands between you and governmental abuse is a lawyer. The only thing that stands between you and
corporate greed is a lawyer. What is a lawyer? He is a golden unicorn in a world of mangey carnivores!
Return with me to April 14, 1912
As recently as September 23, 2010, new theories have been offered to explain the sinking of the Titanic. According to a Reuter's story (The Secret that Sank the Titanic)
the ship could have been kept afloat long enough to rescue the survivors aboard the vessel. The source of that story is Louise Patten,
granddaughter of the ship's most senior ship's officer to survive - Charles Lightoller - who says that the truth was
hidden for fear that it would tarnish the reputation of her grandfather who went on to become a war hero. Sadly, the Titanic was not kept afloat, and the passengers remaining
on board went down with the ship to a watery grave.
The tragedy of the Titanic will intrigue us for generations to come. Imagine the mingled feelings of excitement and pride
at participating in history in 1912 - if you were fortunate enough to book passage on her maiden voyage. Not only are you bound
for the New World, but you are making the crossing on the largest, longest and most luxurious ship in the world. The vessel
is filled with celebrities who give meaning to the term plutocrat!
At 11:30 p.m., crewman Frederick Fleet was perched in a crows nest fifty feet above the fo'c's'le deck and strained to
see what lay ahead of him in the clear air and cloudless sky. A dark mass appeared in front of him ... a great black mass ...
and he gave the warning bell three sharp rings.
"Iceberg! Right Ahead!"
Fleet shouted: "Iceberg! Right Ahead!" The remaining tale needs no pressed parchment or wax seals to give it a unique personality of its own. Your mood changes - in slightly
more than two hours you will remain aboard the broken hull and surrender your mortal remains to the North Atlantic sea with more than 1,500 unfortunate souls.
Pray tell: If you are a passenger aboard RMS Titanic, will you manage to place your loved ones in a life boat? Will you say the right things in the brief parting moment? Will you
step aside with courage and yield to the next woman or child? Will you use the remaining minutes wisely to cleanse your soul?
Will you accept your fate or indulge in self pity? So, too, if you are a crewmember aboard the Titan submersible or the submersible-Titan-owner, and if you hear loud creaking and cracking noises before the implosion, will you use the remaining second(s) wisely to cleanse your soul?
Will you accept your fate or indulge in self pity? Of course, there is no evidence at this time that any creaking or cracking noises were heard. The implosion and the crew members' instaneous deaths might have happened without any warning or indication of impending doom.
Pray tell: If you had one last chance to send a wireless while facing your end aboard the Titanic or if you could make one last call on your iPhone while facing implosion aboard the Titan submersible, would you contact your lawyer?
Would you want your family to receive a check for $50. in recognition of your life's material worth?
If your surviving family members retains the services of Seattle trial lawyer, Gary Wolfstone, would you want your family to recover multiple millions of dollars for the value of your life? I hasten to add that the investigation of precisely how and why the Titan imploded is just beginning, and the evidence has not yet been fully gathered and evaluated. Tragic loss is a wake-up call and is usually followed by legal reform.
Piece Justificative
On June 18, 2023, five people crawled into the Titan which was sealed from the exterior. The five crew or client members were Stockton Rush (OceanGate CEO), Paul-Henri Nargeolet (a deep sea explorer), and three paying passengers. The paying pasengers (whose fare was $125,000 each) were Hamish Harding, Shahzda and Suleman Dawood. The support vessel lost contact with the Titan within two hours after Stockton gave the command, Dive, Dive, Dive.
Appropriately, the WIRED magazine article ends this way: Now the bottom on the North Atlantic is littered with more evidence of human hubris, tiny pieces of a plastic video-game controller nestling among the barnacle encrusted gold fixtures of the Titanic. Both vessels were at the cutting edge of technology, both exemplars of safety in the eyes of their overconfident creators. And in both cases, their passengers paid the price.
Gary L. Wolfstone
Maritime Injuries
Seattle Trial Lawyer
Seattle personal injury lawyer
garywolfstone@gmail.com
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