Climber, 21, dies after sustaining ‘major injuries’ in fall off Devil’s Tower
(NEW YORK) — A 21-year-old rock climber died after “sustaining major injuries” while climbing Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming, authorities said.
The fall occurred on Sunday shortly before 8 p.m. when Devils Tower Law Enforcement was informed that a rock climber, Stewart Phillip Porter, a 21-year-old from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was rappelling down the second pitch of El Cracko when he fell and sustained “major injuries” in a fall, according to a statement from the National Park Service released on Monday.
“Porter’s partner was stranded and later rescued from the wall of the Tower, with help from Devils Tower Lodge Climbing Guides and Buck Wild Climbing Guides,” officials said.
Over the 100 plus year climbing history at the Tower, there have only been seven climbing deaths, according to the National Park Service.
“While climbing fatalities at Devils Tower are infrequent, it is still inherently dangerous,” park officials said.
The National Park Service took the opportunity to remind the public of proper safety measures to take while climbing.
“Check the local weather forecast before climbing and observe changing weather conditions,” officials said. “Watch for animals (stinging insects, birds, rodents and reptiles all live on the Tower) … [and] Consult multiple sources for information on a route, as suggested gear varies between guidebooks.”
“The majority of climbing accidents and deaths on the Tower occur during the rappel. The National Park Service does not maintain anchors – inspect all anchors and back them up if necessary. Ensure you know the location of your rappel route before you begin,” officials said. “Start rappels over the nose of columns to prevent ropes from jamming in cracks. Avoid knocking loose rock onto climbers below. Many rappels require two ropes; know the distance of your planned rappel before beginning.”
Devils Tower expressed appreciation for Devils Tower Lodge, Buck Wild Climbing Guides, Hulett EMS and the Crook County Sheriff’s Office and monument staff who assisted in search and recovery efforts, and offer condolences to the family, park officials said.
(NEW YORK) — The co-founder and former CEO of OceanGate said the company originally never planned to build its own submersibles while testifying during a hearing on the deadly implosion of its Titan sub.
Guillermo Sohnlein co-founded OceanGate in 2009 with Stockton Rush, who was one of the five people killed in a catastrophic implosion while on a deep-sea voyage to see the Titanic wreckage in June 2023. He left the company in 2013, years before OceanGate began conducting dives to the Titanic with the Titan, an experimental, unclassified vessel.
While testifying on Monday during the U.S. Coast Guard’s two-week hearing on the implosion, Sohnlein said when they founded the company, “developing our own subs was not in the original plans.”
He said their vision was to acquire a fleet of deep-diving submersibles that could carry five people up to 6,000 meters that would be available for charter. They didn’t want the subs to require a dedicated mothership or support ship so that they could easily go anywhere in the world and operate off any ship.
He said most active commercial submersibles dive relatively shallow — less than 1,000 meters — limiting how much of the ocean can be explored.
“We wanted to change that,” Sohnlein said. “We wanted to give humanity greater access to the ocean — and specifically the deep ocean, anything deeper than 1,000 meters.”
OceanGate pivots to building own submersible using carbon fiber
Sohnlein said they eventually realized they would need to build their own submersible to achieve that business model.
“If you think about our business requirements of being able to carry five people 6,000 meters without a dedicated mothership deployable anywhere in the world — none of the sub builders could really do that,” he said. “Then, if you did factor in the cost, yeah, it was going to be ridiculously expensive.”
Sohnlein said Rush “convinced ourselves that it’d be possible to build a sub that would meet all of our business requirements.”
Sohnlein said they started looking at carbon fiber as a potential alternative for a pressure hull.
“That’s not a novel idea,” he said. “It wasn’t innovative, it was just something that we started looking at while I was still there.”
Roy Thomas — an engineer with the American Bureau of Shipping, which classifies submersibles — testified during the hearing on Monday that under ABS underwater rules, carbon fiber pressure hulls are “not acceptable materials for submersibles.”
“They have very low resistance to impact loads, and the hull is susceptible to deformation under applied external loading,” he said.
Rush became CEO of OceanGate in 2013, as the company shifted to developing its own submersibles.
“We were transitioning from an operations phase to an engineering phase, and that was really his strength and not mine,” Sohnlein said of Rush. “It made sense for him to take the reins of the company.”
Sohnlein said he made the “difficult decision” to leave the company at that point because there wasn’t going to be much for him to do in terms of operations.
Sohnlein said he still retains approximately 500,000 common shares in OceanGate but has “basically resigned myself to the fact that I’m probably never going to see anything out of that equity stake.”
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion.
OceanGate co-founder never went on Titan
Sohnlein said he was offered “many times” to go on dives on the Titan, though he never did.
“As a shareholder, I didn’t want to take up room in the sub. I wanted to make that available for the people that the dive was intended for,” he said, people for whom seeing the Titanic was their “life dream.”
He also said he just wasn’t interested in going to the Titanic.
“Neither Stockton nor I were ever driven by tourism,” he said. “We were never motivated by going somewhere that people had already been before. The reason we got into this was because we both wanted to explore. We wanted to not only explore ourselves, but create the technologies that would allow us to explore the ocean.”
“So going to see a shipwreck that had already been well-documented, and that a bunch of people had already gone to, that didn’t excite me. It didn’t excite Stockton,” he continued.
Sohnlein reflected on a conversation when Rush told him he did want to conduct the first test dive of Titan down to 4,000 meters solo. He said Rush told him, “I don’t want anybody else in the sub. If anything happens, I want it to only impact me. It’s my design. I believe in it. I trust it. I don’t want to risk anybody else, and I’m going to go by myself.”
In addition to Rush, those killed in the Titan implosion included French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
The hearing into the implosion is scheduled to run through Friday.
In his closing remarks, Sohnlein said he doesn’t know what happened but he hopes they find “valuable lessons learned.”
“This was not supposed to happen,” he said. “This shouldn’t have happened, five people should not have lost their lives.”
He also said he hopes others are inspired by his and Rush’s mission.
“This can’t be the end of deep ocean exploration. This can’t be the end of deep-diving submersibles, and I don’t believe that it will be,” he said. “But I hope that someday, in the near future, we’ll look back on this time as a major turning point in human history — when the global, general public finally took an active interest in all of our efforts, everything that all of us do to explore the deep oceans, to study them and to preserve them.”
(WEST GLACIER, Mont.) — The body of a 32-year-old climber has been found after an apparent fall a week after he went missing.
Grant Marcuccio’s body was found at around 2 p.m. on Sunday, the National Park Service said this week.
The cause of death is still under investigation, but traumatic injuries and the location of his body indicate he likely fell, according to the NPS.
Marcuccio was found east of McPartland Peak, below the ridgeline between Heavens Peak and McPartland Peak.
His body was transported to the Apgar horse corrals.
Marcuccio was last seen by his hiking party on Aug. 18. He had separated from his party to summit McPartland Peak alone and was planning to meet them again at a designated location.
That evening the hiking party alerted rangers that he never showed up to the meet-up spot.
A search for Marcuccio by land and air began on Aug. 19.
(NEW YORK) — Thunderstorms are in the forecast Saturday across parts of the central United States as a summer-like pattern continues to deliver hot temperatures and scattered severe weather.
The highest risk for severe weather on Saturday is along the New Mexico-Texas border, with damaging winds, large hail and a few tornadoes possible between Albuquerque and Amarillo. A Flood Watch has been issued for parts of New Mexico and the Texas panhandle.
There is another area extending from Kansas to Wisconsin that may be producing strong to severe thunderstorms later, with damaging winds being the main threat. Flash flooding could be an issue as well, with 1″-3″ of rain across parts of the Midwest over the next 2 days.
Offshore storm affecting Northeast
A pesky storm system has parked itself off the coast of eastern Massachusetts, drenching Cape Cod and Nantucket with up to 4 inches of rain during the last few days.
Coastal Flood Alerts are in effect for several locations along the east coast, due to the combination of astronomical high tide and the rough surf from this offshore storm.
Minor coastal flooding of 1 to 2 feet is possible this weekend during high tide from the Mid-Atlantic into the Northeast. The storm will slowly pull away by early next week.
In the tropics
The chances for our next tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico are increasing, with a 60% likelihood for development as we head through next week.
The potential storm hasn’t even formed yet, but a storm is expected to take shape around the middle or end of next week, bringing a heavy rain threat to the Gulf Coast.
It is still far too early to determine potential impacts, but residents along the Gulf Coast should be monitoring this over the next several days.