In the height of irony, this week’s Titan submersible disaster will probably loom as large in history as the 1912 sinking of the ship it was trying to look at. Both were doomed for the same reason: blinding overconfidence.

I’ve always been fascinated by the story of the Titanic, and it really hit home when my hubby and I visited Belfast a few years ago. When you explore the Titanic Museum, you understand the pride that the people of Belfast had in building the great ship, and their subsequent pain and horror when it sank. Some of the displays in the museum are heartbreaking, like the photos above of a banner showing desperate wireless messages from the sinking vessel.

The Titanic was thought to be the peak of Edwardian-era technology. It was meticulously engineered and built using all the latest materials. The ship was designed to be a gigantic lifeboat – the reason there wasn’t much concern about the lack of sufficient actual lifeboats was because the builders truly thought there’d be no need for them anyway.

And so they were tragically proven wrong when the one thing happened that the builders hadn’t anticipated. The ship was designed to remain afloat even with a front-end collision and four flooded forward compartments in the hold. But the massive collision with the iceberg along the side of the ship tore such a long gash in the hull that more than four compartments flooded, as water cascaded successively over the bulkheads which for some reason didn’t go all the way to the ceiling. As each compartment flooded backwards through the hull, the poor ship quickly became overwhelmed.

I believe the same overconfidence sealed the fate of the Titan submersible. The CEO, Stockton Rush, refused to have outside inspections done, citing that it would be a waste of time to try and explain all his ‘experimental’ technology to people he thought wouldn’t understand. But those outside people, all experts in marine technology, could have played ‘devil’s advocate’, pointing out and questioning things that Rush might not have thought of. He ignored numerous warning messages, just as Captain Smith of the Titanic ignored repeated iceberg warnings.

We wonder why. Clearly Rush was an intelligent man to be in his position. The only explanation I can see is something the ancient Greeks and the Bible identified millennia ago: “hubris”, or dangerous overconfidence that leads to poor decisions. For the Greeks, there were numerous legends of people who displayed hubris, and were always punished by the gods. The Book of Proverbs, 16:18 stated that “pride goeth before destruction”. Even if you’re not into the Bible, you hear the ring of truth in that proverb. We’ve all experienced it ourselves, on a smaller scale – we’ve done something to show off and instead made an ass of ourselves.

I feel terrible for the families of those on board the Titan, and for the passengers themselves when they heard the instrumental warning of imminent, inescapable implosion. Personally, I would never have set foot on board if I had to sign a waiver that said I understood that I was embarking onto a vessel completely experimental and not certified. As much as I like adventure travel, I still want to be pretty damn sure I’m going to live to talk about the experience.

Following the unfolding tragedy this week has been heartbreaking – in large part because, just like the sub’s namesake, the R.M.S. Titanic, the disaster could have been avoided. This modern disaster is going to be analyzed to death (pardon the pun), and questions have already been raised as to whether such a dangerous form of tourism should even be allowed. If any good can come out of this, laws may be changed so that something like this doesn’t happen again, exactly as in the aftermath of the Titanic sinking. The parallels continue to be disturbing.