Wired's inside investigation into the Titan submersible disaster

The reverse mounted turbine is shameful, imagine if Boeing started accidently mounting one engine the wrong way (perhaps not out of the realm of possibility).

When building FPV drones one of the first things you check after completing the build (and before putting props on) is the rotation of all motors. It's incredibly simple, just stick a bit of tape like a flag to each motor post and check they are spinning correctly.

To not check this on an extremely expensive submarine that will have people inside is unforgivable.

Edit: Just to clarify, not saying building a deep sea submarine is like building a drone, but that the reversed thruster error is egregious. I guess I was trying to get at that it was such a stupid error that it's almost unbelievable to me. I'm just imagining all the possible similar scenarios where something like this could happen, and I can't think of anyone stupid enough to let this kind of thing through. It's like flipping the gas and brakes on a car, or flipping a and d for left/right in a video game...and then actually releasing the product to the public.

The documentary itself is part inspirational story, part puff piece, but it's noteworthy for being nervewracking for all the wrong reasons on its own and not just in hindsight. It's been a while since I watched it so I won't get the exact details right, but there's a scene where the sub has fully gone underwater, and one of the people on the surface says something like "Did we test that?" and the other person just shrugs.

The above is the kind of thing that looks incriminating after the fact but could have been innocuous -- maybe that employee wasn't part of the testing and so genuinely wasn't sure. Their honest answer might have been simply that and not indicative of anything more. It's easy to read too much into it, but it's also hard to not see it as a red flag with what we know now. On its own, it's no smoking gun -- it's merely suggestive that there could be one.

The documentary doesn't stop there though.

In the absolute worst moment that the documentary captures (one that is demonstrative of actual, unignorable negligence and as close to a smoking gun as you'll get), when the sub reaches its target depth, the pilot tries to then move laterally so that they can approach the Titanic. Only then does it become clear, to the inhabitants of the sub, while they are just above the ocean floor, that one of the turbines is mounted backwards. This means that, instead of the sub moving forwards as intended, it will only spin in circles, as one turbine pushes forward and the other backwards at the same time.

Yeah I watched this documentary after that incident, though I had to do a lot of scouring the internet to find one that was watchable in my region, and it's definitely a bit weird to know these things were filmed before this happened, similar to the one where the CBS correspondent David Pogue actually went on one of the trips. Like just creepy to actually see footage from them going down and how doomed this thing actually was and it could have easily happened on that trip and then we never would have even seen that footage.

What was sort of revealed in other reporting but is further emphasized in this reporting that I can't quite think of how to describe my feelings on it, the degree to which they fostered a culture in that work environment of disregarding safety or testing etc. They also hired a bunch of interns who presumably are lacking work experience generally but certainly even more so in that specific industry. People getting fired for speaking out at all or being dismissed/ignored and presumably just being treated poorly for expressing any kind of second thoughts about what they were doing. I would describe it as startling but that's not really it, depressing a bit, frustrating or maddening perhaps. They're basically just tearing people down or possibly making them question themselves for wanting to do things in a way that seems responsible. I've worked in places where I did not agree with certain business practices, I don't know that any were illegal but many of our laws are so inadequate that something can be unsafe or unethical and not be illegal, and at times I felt the pressure of being the person who was expecting more accountability from the business and managers above me and sometimes being outcasted for that and then I'm questioning if I'm just being unreasonable. I can only imagine how much worse that would feel in this type of situation where the stakes are a bit higher and the leadership for this was even more brazen and flagrantly disregarding all reputable outside sources.

I forgive them that, because it's important to set them aside from a republished or scraped article from elsewhere. They're reminding the reader that it's original journalism (so give us a buck or two, hint hint).