A (not so) small but interesting footnote to my article on Human Risk in the Military comes from India, where a submarine has been out of action for 10 months because it submerged without having all the hatches closed. Apparently submarines don’t do quite as well when they’ve got salt water on the inside.
Of course there’s the obvious point that someone should’ve closed it. But I’d also ask why anyone designed something that didn’t mitigate against a very simple an obvious potential risk. You’d think they’d have some form of alarm that would prevent it from submerging if a hatch was open. I’ve seen more sophisticated warning systems on cars…