An interesting piece that contradicts the early reports about crew leaving vents open:
> The company speculated that the crew did not close a watertight door between this hatch and the engine room.
(...)
> But witnesses, an Italian official familiar with the investigation and the underwater video challenged the company’s versions of events. The footage appeared to show the watertight door to the engine room closed, and the Italian official said the divers had not seen any open hatches on the hull.
> Mr. Borner also said that after rescuing the captain, he asked him if he had shut the hatches. The captain said he had. Mr. Borner shared pictures taken by his guests a few moments before the Bayesian sank that appear to show that hull hatches were closed.
Overall, a very informative article, it analyzes boat's documentation and compares it with other boats from the same manufacturer.
Even if after all the investigations it turns out the manufacturer were without blame (which usually is not the case) their attitude doesn't reflect well on them.
Do you want to buy your yacth from someone who will blame everyone but themselves when things go wrong? I would rather buy a yacht from someone who will incorporate all the learnings into their new designs to make them as safe as possible.
The attitude of "we are perfect, somebody else's fault" stinks, even if they are. More so if they are not.
There are two possibilities: it’s their fault or it’s not their fault.
In either case it’s advantageous to do what they did: either you’re wrong and the fact that your defective product killed your customers far far far outweighs any messaging you did before that comes to light, or you’re right and the initial message shows confidence in your product.
Not making a statement shows the inverse: that it could be your product to blame, and if that story is what people run with then it’s much more harmful in the long run even if it turns out to be not your fault.
Nobody makes purchasing decisions on big boats based on the perceived and subjective pettiness of their PR department.
Hard to ignore they're trying to use their own employees as unwilling scapegoats of a very expensive mistake. If they were a wiser cartel, they'd know to generously bribe their employees so they willingly accept the blame.
No. Boeing is a case in point. When companies act defensive like that they burn trust that they are a serious engineering organization. I simply don't trust them at this point because they don't appear to be vocally self critical (or at least just quiet while the facts are being collected).
I agree with you and upvoted your comment as see it's down voted. It's a very valid point that would be their default position regardless of moral obligations but it does read this is a design flaw related to grandiosity from the article.
I disagree IF their design was flawed. Regulated professions like engineers who presumably designed this thing have moral and legal obligations to not crank out a death trap and say it's the buyer's fault. It's actually something I don't respect about the tech industry a whole with a wild wild west approach so probably not a popular view here.
> The company speculated that the crew did not close a watertight door between this hatch and the engine room. (...)
> But witnesses, an Italian official familiar with the investigation and the underwater video challenged the company’s versions of events. The footage appeared to show the watertight door to the engine room closed, and the Italian official said the divers had not seen any open hatches on the hull.
> Mr. Borner also said that after rescuing the captain, he asked him if he had shut the hatches. The captain said he had. Mr. Borner shared pictures taken by his guests a few moments before the Bayesian sank that appear to show that hull hatches were closed.
Overall, a very informative article, it analyzes boat's documentation and compares it with other boats from the same manufacturer.