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OceanGate’s ill-fated Titan sub relied on a hand-typed Excel spreadsheet (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 months ago by Korkki@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 165 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (14 children)

Jesus Christ that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The submarine in the game Iron Lung was safer to drive than this thing.

But Wilby said that for the Titan, the coordinate data was transcribed into a notebook by hand and then entered into Excel before loading the spreadsheet into mapping software to track the sub’s position on a hand-drawn map of the wreckage.

The OceanGate team tried to perform these updates at least every five minutes, but it was a slow, manual process done while communicating with the gamepad-controlled sub via short text messages.

Updates every FIVE MINUTES?! I wouldn't even trust this thing in a damn swimming pool.

[–] Korkki@lemmy.world 92 points 2 months ago (10 children)

I really do wonder why they ended up in this. It can' be that hard to make even a hacky DIY system to do it automatically. The navigation system just had to have some digital or even analog output, then it would be just the problem of interpreting the signal with some script and writing it into a file.

When Wilby recommended the company use standard software to process ping data and plot the sub’s telemetry automatically, the response was that the company wanted to develop an in-house system, but didn’t have enough time.

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 40 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I really do wonder why they ended up in this. It can’ be that hard to make even a hacky DIY system to do it automatically.

All-manager team, no devs?

[–] elvith 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That’s why they use, what they know: Excel. I wonder if the UI was done in PowerPoint?

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 14 points 2 months ago

Nah, FrontPage.

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