Error Local diver critical - Cirkewwa harbor, Malta

[Wookie]

Mine in red below.

I understand that with the diving you and @Wookie are doing, you may have to be 20-30 pounds negative (although it still sounds crazy but I get it) and I also understand the need for negative entry. This is not what I am questioning. 5-6 lbs of negative buoyancy and I drop like a rock. Why would you ever need to be 25-30 lbs negative for the entry???
You don't need to be, you sometimes just are. Depending on your gear, say DPV, double steels or a CCR, a stage bottle or two/three, a camera rig or two, etc.) sometime you just are heavy, by a considerable degree. But did I miss something, where does it say he was that 25-30lb's negative?

I know you can not help your rig being too dense (or can you?),
You can trim down what you carry up to a point, but still you will / may be negative, and maybe be quite a bit. Also why a lot of folks like to dive with ally cylinders, which was the exact reason I didn't (too light).

but I would think you would want to have your BCD inflated to some degree to still keep you negative but not 25 lbs negative. And even if one was not trained to test your BC inflator prior to entry (I would think technical diver would just like recreational divers), then you still would catch it that your valves are not open as you try to make yourself less negative prior to jumping in.
Trained to do so doesn’t always equate to actually doing so, unfortunately.

I also understand that it is a Swiss cheese for many accidents - check your valve open, test your air prior to jumping, test your BC open, do your valve drills , have your buddy check you if you are not solo etc… And any one intervention may have averted the accident. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around how this happened and wondering if something else was at play.
Methinks you are just over-analysing it. On the surface of it (no pun intended) and until / if we learn more, given the 'circumstances' it looks relatively straight forward after the fact - i.e. after going in - to me (the accident that is).

Kudos for the reflection in your right eye.

 

[Kay Dee]

........................... with long hose and an Air2, because I’m ornery. And it’s never failed me. But when it does, it will probably kill me.

A man after my own heart! And it never did (fail) nor killed me, and it never will (now)! I beat the bastard!!

 

[Kay Dee]

Kudos for the reflection in your right eye.

No reflection, an actual sticker. I am blind in my right eye the past 33 odd years, and why I've always had an excuse for having such a one eyed view of things since.

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

No, he drowned in 2m of water, m=meter, M=mega.
It's just a detail, but this incident illustrates that little details (like opening your valves) can be lethal.

A giant stride nor agency had anything to do with this.

Giant stride has lots to do with this. It tells us he didn’t do a shore dive and walk in. If he did he could have walked back out. If what we read is true then I expect he made two mistakes…
Didn’t have enough gas is his wing to be positively buoyant when he did his giant stride into the water and…
He didn’t have his valves on to breath from.

 

[Wookie]

Giant stride has lots to do with this. It tells us he didn’t do a shore dive and walk in. If he did he could have walked back out. If what we read is true then I expect he made two mistakes…
Didn’t have enough gas is his wing to be positively buoyant when he did his giant stride into the water and…
He didn’t have his valves on to breath from.

A giant stride has nothing to do with this because it was a shore entry.

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

A giant stride has nothing to do with this because it was a shore entry.

I didn’t know that.

 

[Kay Dee]

Giant stride has lots to do with this. It tells us he didn’t do a shore dive and walk in

But he did (walk in) and he didnt (take a giant stride), unless you know something we dont? If not may I suggest you reread @Miyaru's post.

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

But he did (walk in) and he didnt (take a giant stride), unless you know something we dont? If not may I suggest you reread @Miyaru's post.

I didn’t know that it was a shore dive. Thanks.

 

[David Haas]

This thread has me vaguely recalling a tech diver drowning in like 4' of water after turning turtle with doubles and no valves turned on. I think it was in the now closed Dutch Springs quarry in Pennsylvania.

Many NY, NJ, Philly and other technical divers would go there to practice before deeper offshore wreck trips.

I think he even had a couple buddies standing in the water right next to him wondering "What the heck is Joe (or whoever) doing on the bottom?"

By the time they dragged him up as he couldn't reach his valves or regulator 2nd stage or turn over he had drowned.......

The "dirt dart" story Capt. Frank related is just one of a few I've read.

In Kevin McMurray's book: Deep Descent: Death and Diving on the Andrea Doria a "competitive" diver wanting to be down to the wreck jumped in without his gas turned on and was very negatively buoyant.

A few minutes later when his buddies descended to the bottom they found him regulator out, mask squeeze bloodshotting his eyes and DOA.....

Lesson: Not checking your gas is on ALL THE WAY is what causes these situations.....

I'm an old geezer and very cautious but still diving for 55 years now

David Haas

 

[Kay Dee]

Lesson: Not checking your gas is on ALL THE WAY is what causes these situations.....

I'm an old geezer and very cautious but still diving for 55 years now

David Haas time to find anothe rpasttime!

Unfortunately not a lesson that can generally be learnt the hard way either. Not a lot of second chances on that one. And if you ever found you need a third chance, well.......................................time to find another pastime.

And given you're been diving that long then you obviously have not only played be the old well used adage, but know it backwards (i.e. I am sure everyone's heard it but for any that haven't (are their any?) then "there are old divers, and there are bold divers, but the aint too many old bold divers".