Freak Storm Sinks Liveaboard off Phuket

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Wahrscheinlich kriegst du als claqeur fuer deinen naechsten trip einen bonus.

Translation: You will probably receive a bonus as a promoter for your next trip.

Hadodi, as you are aware my country lost two souls to the accident. :depressed: Divers take any loss of life seriously, therefore please respect the seriousness of this event. Please cease posting such emotional remarks. If you have something justifiable to say you can say it without being offensive, in any language. I will be happy to translate for you however it will not be in the offensive tone and nuance you use. :shakehead:
 


A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

It might be the wheater(cold) or the solarflares I don't know :confused:
But we do still have a ToS(Go read it please)
Lately lots of us seem to be in to the personal attack mode.
Please before you hit the post your repley button, READ what you have written and keep the ToS in mind.

Thank you
 
Dive Asia Disaster: Why Public Inquiry is Essential - Phuket Wan


Dive Asia Disaster: Why Public Inquiry is Essential
By Alan Morison and Phuketwan Reporters

Sunday, March 22, 2009
Phuketwan urges authorities to act
PHUKETWAN is calling again for an independent public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the MV Dive Asia 1 two weeks ago, with the loss of seven lives.

Confidence in the diving industry on Phuket can only be restored after such tragic loss of life by a full and through public investigation.


Phuketwan reporters have been asking questions about the tragic sinking for a fortnight now. Some answers to the more difficult questions have yet to be forthcoming.

The loss of seven lives on a boat made for tourists should and probably will remain a cause for international alarm and concern until all the answers are known.

Here is a summary of the reasons for an independent investigation.

The Mishap: Why Did a New Boat Sink?
MV DIVE ASIA 1 was launched in October and went to the bottom less than five months later. Phuketwan was told that, as with every locally-built vessel larger than 24 metres, blueprint plans for the boat were submitted and approved before construction began, as regulations require. When we asked to see the blueprint, we were told it was in Bangkok. One obvious characteristic of the boat is its height. Dive boats in and around Phuket have grown taller over the past decade, mostly with the addition of a third level. This has enabled them to carry more passengers without the need to increase the basic dimensions of the vessel. It has also enlarged the profile of these boats, making them more vulnerable in bad weather. Mostly, water and fuel tanks are placed in the bottom of these liveaboard boats. When full, the tanks provide ballast. However, at the conclusion of a long trip, fuel and water are likely to be depleted, with the centre of gravity rising as a consequence.

The Weather: Phuket Can Be Mean
THE WEATHER in and around the Andaman coast can be extremely changeable. At some times of the year, storms seem to arise out of blue skies. As most Phuket motorists know, it is possible to be perfectly dry one minute, absolutely drenched by a tropical downpour the next, then completely dry again on the other side within seconds. The north-easterly that blows across Phang Nga Bay at this time of the year is said to be so vicious that aircraft to and from Phuket divert around it. A regulation north-easterly was certainly causing a few storms in the region on that Sunday night. The route back from the Similan islands to Chalong pier leaves a boat side-on to the north-easterly. Weatherwise, it was also close to the peak of the lunar cycle, when tides are at their highest and waves usually increase in height and strength. Freakish bouts of weather involving severe squalls and high winds are not uncommon around Phuket. Whether the MV Dive Asia 1 was hit by a severe squall or, as some say, a water spout ''vortex'' is almost beside the point: the boat sank, and seven lives were lost. A spokesperson at the local meteorological bureau said they usually only issue warnings for storms above 30 knots, but the storms that evening were below that speed. Speeds of storms are measured, though, on land only. There is a telephone number that seafarers can call to check on prevailing conditions. Calls are rare.

Sinking and Rescue: Why So Sudden? Why So Slow?
SOME concern has been expressed about the speed with which the boat sank, and the speed of the rescue. Survivors say the MV Dive Asia 1 took two minutes to keel over, then in another two minutes, it was gone. Fortunately, the two liferaft were deployed. Although we have yet to learn precisely where the captain and crew were when the storm struck, no alarm was sounded. According to at least one survivor, glass cabin windows gave way quickly, allowing the sea to fill the boat. If the boat did contain an automatic emergency radio beacon designed for just such an emergency, it failed to work. The wreck of the MV Dive Asia 1 was found to be on the bottom of the ocean, about 20 kilometres off Patong, on approximately the route that the boat could have been expected to take back from the Similans to Chalong. With no alarm sounded, it is not surprising that staff from Dive Asia simply went to meet the boat as usual that Sunday at 8am, expecting to find passengers and crew waking up and keen for breakfast. Those missing nine hours from 11pm, when no rescue operation was mounted because no alarm was sounded, are explicable. Less easy to understand are the six daylight hours between when the boat was declared missing and when a Marine Police boat linked up with the survivors, after a telephone call alerted them to the precise location. Where did the searchers go? And why was it so difficult to find two liferaft, bobbing about within sight of Phuket's popular west coast the whole time, on a bright, clear day?

Conclusion: Why an Inquiry is Needed
THE SINKING of the MV Dive Asia 1 has to be investigated thoroughly for one simple reason: if another sinking like this one occurs, Phuket's diving industry is finished. The reasons why the MV Dive Asia 1 went to the bottom have to be clearly established. The reasons why there is and was no weather alert, no matter how ''freakish'' the conditions, have to be clearly established. The reasons why the rescue took so long have to be clearly established. In Bangkok, after the New Year's eve blaze at the Santika pub killed more than 60 people, the authorities acted with speed to ensure that everyone could feel confident and safe again when entering a nightclub. The same kind of due diligence now needs to be displayed by the authorities on Phuket. Tourists need to feel safe on the waters around the island. Dive Asia has a good reputation and its management has acted with professionalism since the sinking. But there are still too many unanswered questions, and too many doubts about safety across the entire diving industry that can only be resolved by a full, independent inquiry. We all need to know the truth.
 
Aussie Dive Survivor Tells: 'I Walked the Walls' - Phuket Wan

Aussie Dive Survivor Tells: 'I Walked the Walls'
By Alan Morison

Saturday, March 14, 2009
Phuketwan Calls for Independent Inquiry
MIKE Sampson's shaved head is still peeling, the kind of holiday skin complaint many tourists develop while having fun in and around Phuket.

However, this burst of sunburn did not come from a regulation overdose in a day at the beach.

The Australian's skin turned red while he bobbed on a life raft for more than 13 hours, having narrowly escaped becoming entombed in a sinking liveaboard diveboat.
Struck by a savage storm on Sunday evening, the MV Dive Asia 1 went down within minutes in sight of the holiday town of Patong, trapping five tourists inside.

The bodies of two more victims have since been found.

Soon after the 52-year-old IT security expert went to bed last Sunday night, as the boat sailed back from a five-night diving expedition around the Similan islands, the real-life nightmare began.

''It had been a glorious day,'' he said, sitting in a Patong coffee shop. ''The diving was superb and the weather had been perfect.

''I must have gone to bed about 10.50 pm. Suddenly the boat listed 20 or 30 degrees, and I waited for it to right itself. It didn't.

''It went over further, too far. I knew I had to get out. I climbed up, out of my cabin through the door, then walk along the wall of the walkway.

''My cabin was on the lowest of three decks, about sea level. I had to climb a spiral staircase to get out.

''But the wall was now the floor. To get onto the staircase, I had to hoist myself up to shoulder height.

''Someone behind me helped to shove me up. They were anxious to get out, too. From the dive deck, we managed to jump into the sea.''

As Sampson bobbed in the waves in a driving storm, continuous bolts of lightning illuminated the last moments of the MV Dive Asia 1 before it slipped to the seabed.

''Within about two minutes, the boat capsized keel up,'' Sampson said. ''Then about two minutes later, it sank.''

Two large circular life rafts had been deployed and the survivors climbed into them, one by one. Eventually, there were 19 people bobbing on the rafts.

One real hero emerged. Christian Diermaier, a German diving instructor, saw a couple of life rings lit up in the dark some distance away, jumped back into the water, and returned with four more people.

They were the last. As the storm eased and the people in the two rafts could hear each other, they called out each other's names and did the sums.

Twenty-three people on board. Seven missing.

The storm hit so suddenly and with such intensity there was apparently not even time for the captain to make a mayday call.

But the rafts, now tethered together, were bobbing in a popular stretch of water, within sight of Phuket. Rescue could be expected any minute, the survivors thought.

A sailing ship was spotted in the dark, a flare was fired. No reponse. ''The people on the yacht were probably asleep,'' Sampson said.

Daylight came. Still nothing.

Back on Phuket, the alert was finally raised about 8am when Dive Asia staff went to Chalong pier to pick up the returning voyagers.

After the boat docks around 2am, the divers are usually left to sleep in their cabins until later.

There was no inkling of the sinking until nine hours after the tragedy. And a search for the vessel, or survivors, appears to have been initiated in the wrong area.

It was not until about noon that the crew on a small fishing boat responded to the flash of a special mirror that Sampson used to attract their attention. It was part of the emergency equipment on the life rafts.

However, the fishing boat was small, so the life rafts had to continue to bob in the heat because there was no room for the survivors on board.

At 2pm, six hours after the alarm was raised, a marine police boat motored to the three craft. By 4.30pm, the survivors were on dry land having their cuts, bruises and sunburn treated.

Apart from questions about the time it took for a rescue to be completed, an independent inquiry should examine how a boat that was launched in October could sink so quickly in a storm.

It is thought the MV Dive Asia was toppled by a gale blowing in one direction and strong waves pounding the base in the other direction.

One of the other divers on board related an even more dramatic escape.

''The window on her cabin burst from the pressure and water rushed in,'' Sampson said. ''She managed to find a pocket of air trapped in the closet, took a deep breath, then when water filled her cabin, swam out through the window.''

Sampson, the only Australian among Austrians, Germans, Swiss and Japanese, lost his much treasured Macbook Pro, an iPhone, and a collection of personal diving gear, as well as all his clothes.

At first he planned to keep the rescue mirror as a memento, but he ended up giving it to the fishing boat captain who provided the survivors with iced water and used his mobile telephone to raise the alarm.

Fortunately Sampson's passport, and a camera he had forgotten, were locked in a safe back at a guesthouse in Patong.

However, the key went down with the ship. It took two days to open the safe.

On Thursday, a team of highly specialised technical divers fetched the bodies of two Austrians, two Swiss and a Japanese from the wreck, 71 metres down.

The body of an Austrian woman was found floating on Tuesday and the missing Thai cook was found floating about 70 kilometres from the wreck yesterday.

The 13 surviving divers (there were 11 crew and instructors) have either headed home on schedule or are staying to complete their holidays.

Sampson, wearing clothes purchased with a handout of 5000 baht from the dive company to each of the survivors, hopes to dive again next week.

He has faith in the professionalism of Dive Asia and was one of the first to test out the MV Dive Asia 1, back in November, on the boat's second voyage.

Survivors of the disaster can be thankful that the storm did not come an hour later, when almost everyone would have been asleep and below decks.

An independent inquiry should now be carried out to investigate every aspect of the tragedy.

One simple fact: divers on the Andaman coast are actually safer making a dive than they are on the trip to and from the Similans, at the wrong time.

Why? Because diving is tightly regulated and regimented to ensure the equipment works every time, and to remove all predictable risks.

Maritime authorities do not take the same approach above the water. It is time they did.

The crash of Flight 269 in 2007 at Phuket airport, with 90 killed, was caused in part by a ferocious gust of wind that drove the aircraft into the tarmac.

The same changeable savagery this time has caused the deaths of seven people, six divers and a liveaboard crew member.

Those of us who looked on as the bodies of five of them were recovered from the depths on Thursday never want to be present at another bodies recovery.

The only way to ensure no more divers die unnecessarily, and to ease all the concerns now rippling through the dive industry, is to hold a thorough, independent inquiry.

Deciding who should undertake the investigation must become the first important task of Phuket's new Governor, who starts work this week.

Sinking of the MV Dive Asia 1

March 4
Dive boat MV Dive Asia 1 with 19 tourists and 11 crew aboard leaves Chalong pier for a five-night liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands.

March 8
4.30pm A boat carrying three men capsizes in a storm off Phuket's south shore. Two men, Jidtapon Taveeworaparsert and Sittichai Tanadpirom, swim to safety on Koh Bon and alert the authorities that Atakorn Jaiboon is missing.
10pm The MV Dive Asia 1 departs from the Similans in calm seas to return to Phuket.
11pm A savage squall strikes and passengers on board are thrown into the water without warning. The boat capsizes and sinks within minutes. Twenty-three people scramble into inflatable life rafts and drift with the dinghies tied together through the night.

March 9
8am Dive Asia staff arrive at Chalong pier to meet the boat that was due back to shore between 2am and 4am but are unable to find it. They alert Royal Thai Navy that the boat is missing.
Noon Survivors are spotted in the water by a fishing boat, all essentially intact.
2pm A Marine Police boat intercepts the fishing boat and survivors are taken aboard. Calls between rescue personnel and Dive Asia confirm that seven people, six tourists and a Thai staffer, are missing.
4.05pm The Marine Police boat arrives back at Phuket's Deep Sea Port and the 23 survivors are debriefed and taken for treatment of sunburns and minor injuries.
4.35pm A Navy helicopter spots a body floating on the surface of the water. Officers in the helicopter give the coordinates to Marine Police, but only a life jacket is found.
6.30 pm The sunken boat is located by sonar by Navy boat "Pahruhat" off Phuket, at a depth of 71 metres.

March 10
6am Search vessels resume the hunt for more possible survivors.
7am A body is seen on the water from the Navy helicopter and recovered by Marine Police about four kilometres away from the previous sighting.
1pm The recovery boat arrives back at the Deep Sea Port of Phuket and the body is transferred to Vachira Hospital, where it is identified as Austrian tourist Gabrielle Jetzinger.
The body of Atakorn Jaiboon, who was aboard the small boat off Rawai with two others, is found by rescue officials.

March 11
Noon Four specially-trained technical divers descend to the sunken boat in search of the missing.
4.10 pm Divers report that four bodies are found inside the wreck of the MV Dive Asia 1 on the floor of the ocean off Patong. Positional records lead police to conclude that the bodies are those of two Austrians and two Swiss. Two men, a Thai staffer and a Japanese tourist, remain missing.

March 12
11.05am Technical divers begin their descent to the sunken boat to recover four bodies and to search for the two still missing.
12.25pm Five bodies are recovered and taken back to Phuket for identification. The first Austrian victim found is cremated about the same time the five bodies arrive back on shore.

March 13
6.20pm Body found floating about 50 kilometres off Mai Khao beach and Phuket Airport is lifted onto a marine boat. Preliminary identification from boardshorts is that it is the missing Thai cook.
 
'Body of Missing Cook' Found at Sea - Phuket Wan


'Body of Missing Cook' Found at Sea
By Shanya Phattrasaya and Alan Morison

Friday, March 13, 2009
Phuketwan Update
A BODY, believed to be Thai cook Jumpa Sorntat, has been recovered by the marine police and is now being brought back to Phuket. The body was spotted about 2.30pm today by a Royal Thai Navy helicopter. Marine police picked up the body about 6.20pm. Officers believe it is Khun Jumpa because of the shorts he was wearing. Positive identification is likely to be made tomorrow by his family at Vachira Hospital in Phuket City. The body was found about 50 kilometres directly out to sea from Mai Khao beach and Phuket Airport. MV Dive Asia 1 rests on the ocean bottom about 20 kilometres off Patong.
Earlier Report
DIVERS were making a final trip today to the MV Dive Asia 1 on the ocean bed to make certain that the remaining missing victim of Sunday's sinking is not on board.

Thai cook Jumpa Sorntat told the captain as the storm hit the boat: ''I love this boat, I want to stay here.'' Then he went inside the boat.

The captain, Chatree Leechoi, turned his attention to the other crew and passengers who were scrambling for their lives.

It is understood that some cabins on the sunken vessel have yet to be opened, Marine Police deputy superintendent Lieutenant Colonel Prasert Srikhoonrat told Phuketwan today.

Seven people were lost and six bodies have since been recovered, five found yesterday entombed in the dive boat's wreck.

One of the technical divers making the descent that only highly trained specialist divers can make to 71 metres is Swiss and said to have been a friend since childhood of the two Swiss who died in the storm.

Marine Police also plan a surface search today by boat to look for Khun Jumpa. It will be the final day of searching, he said.

Officials at Vachira Hospital in Phuket City today said the father of Japanese victim Yuba Hirotsuga had identified his son's body.

But hospital officials plan to make absolutely certain by checking DNA with his mother.

Doctors have now positively identified all found victims.

It is believed that the husband of Gabrielle Jetzinger, 52, one of three Austrian victims, may yet come back to retire in Phuket. Both were dentists.
 
Who ever wants to see a letter I received from a participant of our tour is welcome to request it (but not anonymously, please).
 
we are all still waiting for the outcome of a public independent and non-corrupt investigation which should give the answer on all the open questions (not only I have asked).
In civilized countries, if fatalities, it goes without saying.
By the way - I had been a long-term friend of one of the victims.
 
To:
Management Dive Asia, Phuket, Thailand
Dear Madam, Dear Sir,
4 months passed so far after the deadly accident with your dive ship DIVE ASIA 1, which caused several casualties.
Not only me, as a long-term friend of one of the victims, but several journalists have asked for a public inquiry in this accident, because due to our believe the public has a RIGHT to know what really happened that night. Without accusing you of any wrongdoing or negligence, I strongly believe/hope that there was a police investigation – even in Thailand there are laws and regulations, especially if there are fatalities. And the results should be published, also in DIVE Asia’s interest. Maintain one’s silence (head-in-the-sand-policy) certainly does not make the issued disappear, it rather casts a shadow of suspicion.
In its advertising DIVE ASIA PHUKET promotes itself as one of the top diving facilities in Thailand, with PADI rewards etc.
I am looking forward to reading your answer soon.
Best regards
Dr. Michael Beer
Baden/Austria
 

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