Wreckage Recovery from 900 feet

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That part is true. It was Acadiana Divers in 1997 SUR D 02 and a standard deck chamber DDC. Jim Little was the diver on BIBS smoking in the chamber causing a fire and his own death. Again to be clear to all, an air diver in a deck decompression chamber at 30FSW. Not saturation and not a multiple fatality....

I stand corrected. I missed that report.

American, died during surface decompression, smoking inside the DDC, fire. Further: Acadiana Divers - diver death due to chamber fire. [James Little] Initial report that lighter fluid container was found melted in chamber. Presumed diver smoking while in chamber. Final report appears to substantiate circumstance.

Smoking on O2 in a chamber is insane enough, but filling your lighter is beyond comprehension. Normally I would feel sorry for the loss of a fellow diver, but not this one. Darwin has done his work. How could it have gone unnoticed by the chamber operator?
 
I stand corrected. I missed that report.


Smoking on O2 in a chamber is insane enough, but filling your lighter is beyond comprehension. Normally I would feel sorry for the loss of a fellow diver, but not this one. Darwin has done his work. How could it have gone unnoticed by the chamber operator?

American, died during surface decompression, smoking inside the DDC, fire. Further: Acadiana Divers - diver death due to chamber fire. [James Little] Initial report that lighter fluid container was found melted in chamber. Presumed diver smoking while in chamber. Final report appears to substantiate circumstance.


I like your detailed description better, you make two very relevant points. Thanks.

By way of explanation as to the chamber operator I don't know how you feel about this and I would value your reply, but my assumption is that the chamber operator knew all along what the diver was doing, and IMHO back then just not much he would or could have done about it.

The "American way" of beginning as a tender before lead tender, then "breaking out" as diver etc etc has for my part a lot to do with this type of behaviour. The guy on the panel just wouldn't be in any position to do anything about it.

I won't, but could name a few ex Vietnam "vets" that for the most part were just as crazy.

No names no pack-drill but for the most part being the "token" Brit working for a Yank outfit. For the Brits it was mostly booze in the chamber, for you lot mostly dope in the "Redman" . This guy was probably playing it safe.

Further if confession is good then I too and not for the first time have been blown down in a "Vertical 4" with a box of Swan Vesta's rattling about in my pocket and will testify that you can flush them past a 1 inch Worcester 44. Happy days not. But there but by the grace of God go I and few others if truth be told.
 
American, died during surface decompression, smoking inside the DDC, fire. Further: Acadiana Divers - diver death due to chamber fire. [James Little] Initial report that lighter fluid container was found melted in chamber. Presumed diver smoking while in chamber. Final report appears to substantiate circumstance.

After the incident with the Apollo 1 both the diver and the chamber operators show have known better...
 
... By way of explanation as to the chamber operator I don't know how you feel about this and I would value your reply, but my assumption is that the chamber operator knew all along what the diver was doing, and IMHO back then just not much he would or could have done about it...

I would agree with you if "back then" was the late 1960s or even into the 1970s, but 1997? A lot of the GOM culture persists but most of the job-site trained divers were long gone and replaced by products of decent commercial dive schools by 97. I don't believe that ignorance on anyone's part was possible at that point.

... The "American way" of beginning as a tender before lead tender, then "breaking out" as diver etc etc has for my part a lot to do with this type of behaviour. The guy on the panel just wouldn't be in any position to do anything about it. ...

In theory, a long apprenticeship "should" be a good thing... but not how it was run in the early days of sat. I really don't know today. There were a lot of Yanks that were fresh out of school that went to the North Sea after getting fed up with the GOM. Some went back after being a sat diver to become supervisors.

We're not talking about a safety short-cut from client pressure to make the job run faster. We both understand how judgment calls can be influenced causing humans to make disastrous errors. There simply was no possible excuse on this one by 1997.

I am amazed the company could get insurance or service contracts after something so incompetent. Turning divers into crispy-critters looks bad on everyone's résumé, including diving supers and the customer reps. There would be criminal prosecutions in most states if the facts were understood by prosecutors. This is a very litigious society.

For the most part, OSHA (our closest equivalent to HSE) are considered Nazis unreasonably aggressive here. By all accounts, they don't know much about diving though.
 

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