Well, that about it settles what happened.
Well, that about it settles what happened.
From the pre-accident reports about the sub it seems like hull integrity was the thing they actually cared about the most, with everything else being in an even worse state. My money would be on the sub drifting somewhere with no power or no control or whatever.
https://simpleflying.com/pressurization-cycles-aircraft-life...
The goal is to have extremely high reliability at the given rating. Not failing for a half dozen trips is nearly meaningless. Safety critical equipment is expected to meet the rated load thousands of times without issue. Using equipment well outside its rated working load, in situation where failures kill people, is highly irresponsible.
I wonder how many layer of safety there is, there should probably be at least 3 independent ways that ballast can come off when your life depends on it..
-Somebody at Boeing about MCAS at some point, probably.
Besides which, shedding ballast is part of it's normal operational cycle. One would hope that would be bulletproof.