BORIS JOHNSON: Those brave souls on the Titan sub died in a cause – it fills me with pride
And so it ends, the way we knew it would end – like the story of the Titanic itself.
For days we tried to keep hope alive. We fed our imaginations with the news of the hull banging; we were supported by the idea that the legendary French submarine Paul-Henri Nargeolet had broken away from several previous underwater crises.
In reality, we knew in our hearts the denouement – that all five brave souls on the OceanGate Titan were dead. It now appears that the US Navy’s acoustic detectors had already heard the sound of the implosion on Sunday and feared the worst. The mystery is over and the moralizing begins.
What is the Titanic? What is the significance of this disaster of April 15, 1912, which still so preoccupies people that they are willing to risk their lives to see the wreck? The Titanic is one of the most powerful metaphors of the modern world.
It is the striking symbol of human ambition and pride, and how it can be destroyed by the elements. It’s a fable about how a supposedly unsinkable piece of shiny and luxurious new technology – made from 50,000 tons of steel – could be ripped apart by nothing more complicated than a piece of frozen water.
Five people were on the Titan submarine, including British adventurer Hamish Harding (left) and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman (right)
French Navy veteran Paul-Henri Nargeolet (left) and Stockton Rush (right), CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, also died in the tragedy
When we think of the Titanic, we are reminded of the eternal tragic truths: that hubris invites mortal enemies, that man represents and God ordains, that the paths of glory lead but to the grave – and that no amount of money can help you cheat death.
Astor, Straus, Guggenheim: they went down with everyone else in their white ties and spit in the icy water. As a story of divine retribution for human hubris, Titanic is the most gripping story since the Tower of Babel.
Now the five submariners, including British entrepreneur Hamish Harding, have added their own chapter. We mourn for them all, and our hearts are especially hurt by the account of 19-year-old Suleman Dawood, who was a little nervous but wanted to make sure his dad had a great Father’s Day.
We see the tragedy of it all – and we see the irony. They began to meditate on human mortality and themselves contributed to the toll of the Titanic. They went to see this desolate display of the vanity of human desires – and tragically proved the point.
We mourn for them all, and our hearts are especially hurt by the account of 19-year-old Suleman, who was a little nervous but wanted to make sure his dad had a great Father’s Day. Suleman (pictured) studied at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow before his death
The Titanic is one of the most powerful metaphors of the modern world. It is the striking symbol of human ambition and pride, and how it can be destroyed by the elements. Pictured: A 3D scan of the Titanic wreckage, revealed by experts last month
Ever since the Titanic sank beneath the icy waves of the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912, the stricken ship has been an object of fascination for millions of people. Pictured: The Titanic embarks on its maiden voyage from Southampton
The expedition descended 1.5 miles into the black depths of the Atlantic Ocean, to brood on a great truth: that all our inventiveness and mechanical genius can be overpowered in an instant by an evil Mother Nature – and they themselves fell victim of that truth.
As James Cameron, the film’s director, has himself pointed out, there are eerie echoes between the OceanGate Titan’s journey and the Titanic’s own journey.
Like the captain who steered into the moonless night, even though he’d been told there was ice ahead, it’s clear they proceeded with a misplaced confidence in their carbon fiber and titanium structure – like the misplaced confidence of those Titanic engineers who believed that with 16 watertight compartments, the hull of the mighty liner would not be able to flood.
I know there will be many who will say that Harding and his fellow adventurers were foolish and that we need regulation against such experimental technology. Even before news of the implosion, the Leftie Twittersphere was awash with criticism: that these people had more money than sense, and that we shouldn’t be wasting huge amounts of taxpayers’ money trying to save them.
We were told not to put so much emotional energy into a few members of the plutocratic elite, when so many more perished in the Mediterranean, where a boatload of migrants capsized.
In the caustic words of commentator Ash Sarkar: “If the super-rich can spend $250,000 on vain forays 1.8 miles under the ocean floor, then they’re not being taxed enough… We’re getting well-funded public services, they’re being saved from their own overconfidence. What’s not to like about it?’
I know there will be many who will say that the adventurers were foolish and that we need regulation against such experimental technology. But Harding and his comrades tried to take another step for humanity. Pictured: A file photo of Titan
Harding and his friends died for a purpose – to push the frontiers of human knowledge and experience – that is quintessentially British, and that fills me with pride
Well, Ash, without in any way downplaying the tragedy of the migrants, let me tell you how I feel about those on the Titanic expedition. I think it’s heroes.
I first went diving in 1988, along those huge sheer coral rocks at Sharm El Sheikh. I went down 33 meters, I looked up from the dark blue darkness to see the sunlight playing on the surface in the distance, and I thought, I really don’t want this kit to fail right now.
I knew I would drown. So I can hardly imagine how much guts it takes to go down almost 4,000 meters, in a craft that seems so fragile, where there is no light at all and where you don’t even know where you are.
The reason so few people have done it is because it takes so much guts; and precisely because the market is so small and undeveloped, populated only by risk-hungry billionaires, the machines are still a bit experimental. Unless and until we master this form of navigation, humanity will continue to live in ignorance.
Look at our globe, this beautiful ball criss-crossed every day by the contrails of aircraft, where virtually every inch of land has been explored from pole to pole. It is 70 percent blue, covered with seas and oceans that are sometimes more than twice as deep as the Titanic’s resting place.
It is an astonishing fact that only about a fifth of the world under the oceans has been mapped. We are less aware of Earth’s underwater landscape than we are of the surface of Mars.
Some say this undersea world is full of riches; like those rare metals we so desperately need for electric vehicle batteries, abundant nodules that can be harvested without harming the marine environment. Others are not so sure. But how can we know if we’re not looking? And why should the chance to look at this world be reserved for an infinitely small number?
I can hardly imagine how much guts it takes to go down almost 4,000 meters, in a craft that seems so fragile, where there is no light at all and where you don’t even know where you are
That is why this mission was so important, and should be appreciated by leftists and everyone else alike. Yes, there were risks and warnings. But any great progress inevitably involves experimentation, and equipment that, in retrospect, can seem dangerously inadequate.
Look at the slide rules and graph paper that the first astronauts used to calculate their position in space. Look at those first flying machines – weird constructions of leather and canvas and wood. They were deadly – and yet no one tried to regulate them. The whole idea was new.
Hamish Harding and his comrades tried to take another step for humanity, to popularize undersea travel, to democratize the ocean floor. They knew the dangers. In the immortal words of Captain Scott, just before he died of the Antarctic cold: ‘We took risks, we knew we were taking them; things have come against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint…”
Harding and his friends died for a purpose – to push the boundaries of human knowledge and experience – that is quintessentially British, and it fills me with pride.