[user104658]

Originally Posted by Cherie

why would he go to prison, the crew signed disclaimers and its open water not covered by any laws

Death disclaimers are VERY flimsy, it's built into most legal systems that you can't sign away your life, it would be subject to reasonable limits (i.e. that death was unlikely and would occur because of unforeseen factors). If it's found that death was likely (or inevitable) based on negligence or poor safety standards, any signed disclaimer would fall apart.

Good example of that would be the disclaimer you sign when you go for surgery - which does state that you understand the surgery might not be successful and that there can be side effects up to and including death. Doctors and hospitals are still regularly (successfully) sued for medical negligence if something goes wrong that isn't just "unfortunate", but is clearly the avoidable fault of the individual or the hospital.

The international waters part is interesting though . It's a bit of a myth that the open sea is "lawless", international waters are covered by international law governed by the UN, but something as specific and complex as contract law would probably be very murky (and realistically no one would ever fully investigate it, the UN have bigger fish to fry than the misadventures of thrillseekers).