[babypuncher]

I'm struggling to find real statistics to back this up, but my suspicion is that other deep-submergence vehicles used to travel to this depth (and further) have a failure rate of 0% for manned missions.

My suspicion is based on the fact that I can't find any other stories of deep sea vehicles failing and killing their passengers in the last 40 years. DSV Alvin for example has completed 5,000 dives with 0 fatalities.

[WillPostForFood]

According to this interview with Bob Ballard, there have been no fatalities or catastrophic accidents in the deep sea submersible/exploration world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jJ_SSU-ocU

He mentioned since 1960, but unclear if that was because that's when the deep sea submersible exploration started, or something happened in 1960.

That makes OceanGate's sub seem like a uniquely incompetent design.

[babypuncher]

Dr Ballard seems like as authoritative of a source as any.

OceanGate just ruined a 60 year perfect track record for an entire field of engineering.