The company behind the submersible that imploded during a recent dive to the Titanic ignored key principles that guide organizations working in high-risk environments, experts in emergency management say.
Jack Rozdilsky, a professor at York University in Toronto,  says OceanGate’s business—ferrying paying passengers to the floor of the North Atlantic—could be compared to the immensely risky work of companies that launch space flights, drill for offshore oil, fight wildfires or operate nuclear power plants.
“These are high-reliability organizations (HROs) that operate in complex, high-hazard domains for extended periods of time without serious accidents or catastrophic failures,” Rozdilsky, a professor of disaster and emergency management, said in a recent interview. “OceanGate does not appear to have functioned as a high-reliability organization.”…