How long before this same type tourist tragedy happens in space? Probably sooner, rather than later. It's one thing to explore new frontiers. That's justifiable risk. This wasn't that. This was a bunch of rich guys purchasing the ultimate selfie opportunity -
"look at me, I'm at the Titanic!" No different, really, than the tourists taking selfies while petting bison at Yellowstone. No self-awareness of the danger.

Thinking about this…

It would be pretty easy for me to simulate that event.

Buy some carbon fibre pipe. Make some metal end caps. One with an annular burst disk. Glue them on.

Put it in one of my 15k pressure test vessels and pressure it up until the burst disk ruptures or the bond breaks.

I could even put some bacon in there to see it the fat makes it explode… it won’t.

I was thinking, there was oxygen on board, but looking at the schematic, I think the oxygen was outside of the carbon tube in the tail section. During the implosion, the fittings into the cabin were separated and the escaping oxygen most likely shot that tank into the great unknown. (If the escaping pressure were greater than the sea pressure)
My point, I see an instance where there COULD have been an explosion, but just as likely, no explosion.

Also, I wonder how much air eventually rose to the surface - would it have been enough to make a bubble that could have been seen topside?

"Explosion" as in sudden release of energy not fire or anything chemically driven

Energy released is proportional to the change in volume and the pressure both of which would be vast in a sudden implosion.

However a more gradual delamination seems not unlikely at this point.

I can't help but think it is like a compression ignition event -- without any fuel other than the oxygen of course. I don't know what the compression ratio would be, so to speak.

I'm morbidly curious about the physics.

My morbid curiosity is what happens to a human body at that depth after the implosion. I assume one disintegrates instantly and there's not much left. But if not, does the pressure compress them into a small ball of flesh?

It is very much so. Check out adiabatic compression. Or as someone mentioned before the inside of a diesel cylinder during the compression stroke. In my simple mind the rapid decrease in volume causes a rapid and extreme increase in the temperature as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_process

The Combined Gas law may offer some math that could help.

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5000/14 roughly so very high but very low chance of combustible mixture under compression

Have you ever seen the video of the railroad tanker car imploding? It's out there on the web. It compresses like someone stepping on a beer can in a fraction of a second.

Here it is. . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM

:eek: crikey

The atmosphere inside would be super-heated though? Or is the pressure of the water too great?

Mythbusters tested an extremely mild version of this event. https://youtu.be/LEY3fN4N3D8

Built a "meat man" from plastic skeleton and pig meat, put into an old-style diving suit with a bell helmet, lowered to 300 feet, turned off pressure to the airline. As air left the suit interior, water pressure compressed the suit exterior. Inside the suit, the "body" was compressed up into the diving helmet.

35X greater depth + instant compression + we being 60% water anyway.

the navy knew since sunday they were dead IMO.

thats why the second there was a deep search vehicle on site, they found the sub. the navy was like "we cant tell you how we know, but look right here" and they found it right away.

SOSUS is a hell of a drug.

The thing that blows me away is that the actually visibility from the "sub" was reportedly atrocious and most of the "viewing" occurred via onboard screens in the sub. WTF?

What's interesting to me is how many times James Cameron has been to the Titanic, I believe 33 times. Plus he's taken his one-man sub to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. He pilots a single seater and it looked infinitely safer than that sewer pipe "tourist" sub. Still not without risk, but Cameron has mitigated as much risk as possible.

James Cameron to Mariana Trench. That's 7 miles down, not 2 1/2.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/05/23/186302916/Mariana-Trench

What "blows me away" is these people going that deep in a cold, dark, deep ocean......inside what essentially seems to me to be a crap mobile.

Live and let live, I guess but seriously?

So much for bragging rights.

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