Diver missing on Oriskany 10/22/11

[Hetland]

Is the Oriskany a drift dive?

Not unless you want to swim 20+ miles back to shore Boats are hard-tied into the wreck. You follow a rope from the back of the boat to the Oriskany and back again.

Eight people before? Did these people venture inside?

Rob may be aware of other deaths I've overlooked or forgotten, but my count is more like five. At least one, if not two of the "Oriskany Deaths" were really medicals that would have happened on any offshore Gulf dive.

If this is indeed a death, I believe it is the 3rd or 4th rebreather death on the Oriskany. One person went beyond his training depth, another made an error in assembling his rebreather, and sea conditions helped mask warning signs that normally would have alerted him to a problem. He fell asleep at depth. (someone feel free to correct me if I am mis-remembering)

Let's play devil's advocate and forget about the rebreather angle, and just say that depth is what seems to get people killed on the Oriskany. Don't go deeper than your training, Don't go deeper than your mix, Don't forget to frequently check your gauges, both gas and no-decompression limits.

 

[ahava]

It's a safe assumption here that no matter what happened, with a buddy this diver would have been either rescued, or easier to recover and give the family some closure (not to mention financial aspects of the recovery), and hopefully we'd have something to learn from-- which we don't have now.

Or we would be looking for 2 divers. Lost 2 on the Spiegel a few years back. Fortunatly in that csae there was 3.

 

[RonFrank]

At this point the likely-hood of learning anything new is remote. Rebreathers can be heavy if they flood which may prevent the body from surfacing. The site is remote and deep, and there were some strong current's when the diver went missing. I have no idea how long before missing becomes dead.

Rebreathers seem to make up a large % of tech diving deaths. I think someone indicated 4 out of 5 Big O deaths. The technology is way cool, but it also seems like when something goes wrong it kills.

 

[Wookie]

Let's play devil's advocate and forget about the rebreather angle, and just say that depth is what seems to get people killed on the Oriskany. Don't go deeper than your training, Don't go deeper than your mix, Don't forget to frequently check your gauges, both gas and no-decompression limits.

I don't think it is wise in the accidents and incidents forum to forget the rebreather angle. When Open Circuit gives you a problem, it is almost always immediately obvious and corrective actions start immediately. Additionally, the technology is well proven, relatively simple, and mechanical. Let us remember what rebreather divers do when their rebreather screws the pooch. They take "sanity breaths" from their open circuit bailout. And when their rebreather shuts down completely for any number of reasons? They bail out to open circuit and ascent to the surface.

A rebreather is a relatively complex technology, with many models controlled by a computer. We all know how reliable computers are. I had a diver on the Oriskany last month complaining to the manufacturer that their handset would sometimes just shut down during the dive. The manufacturers rep was able to see it happen with their own eyes on the Oriskany and provided the diver with a new handset. Point is that a rebreather problem can cause you to just fall asleep. You can be within your training depths, within your comfort zone, checking all of your gauges (heck, they put one right in front of your face) and the damn thing may still kill you and you won't even know it. I've had 2 friends pass this way, and that's why I'm happy with Open Circuit. Nope, I'll never see the Britannic, or the Lusitania, or any of those deeper than 400 foot wrecks. It's OK.

 

[Firefishvideo]

I want to preface this with the fact that I helped with the search, but have no idea where the diver is or what may or may not have happened to him.I do hope that at some point we learn what happened.
That said, I don't hold anything against the diver for not diving with a buddy. Techdivers make up such a small percentage of the dive community that we can't always count on someone of our exact skill level being there to dive with us. Nothing against my friends who are great divers, but I really like not having to worry about where my buddy is.....and although you do have some possible safety in numbers, you also double the number of divers to which something might go wrong.....or silt out, or scare off the fish....ect.
Anyway, I support the divers choice to dive alone....life is short and you better not waste your life waiting for other people to do what you want to do, or to accept the way that you do it. I Believe most people have forgotten "give me liberty or give me death!" and while death is not the preffered option, not having liberty is a kind of death and those that become one with the water should understand that.
I helped with the search, I gave of my time , and put myself on the line to try and bring him home - because ...although I didn't know him, he was a brother diver, a man that was not afraid, a man that would not sit on the sidelines , but went and did what made him happy.
Of course after being a part of something like this , you do tend to give a bit more thought to what would happen if something DID happen to you someday.

 

[DiveLvr]

I am truly sorry for the guy that is lost and for the family he leaves behind. Does anyone kknow what type of gear he was using (OC,CCR, etc)? I assume a rebreather.

Dive Lvr

 

[VooDooGasMan]

After seeing divers I knew die on rebreathers I gave mine away, I would never sell a deathtrap, but if you want it you can have it.

Of course I still look into the new ones that come out and learn what I can of them.

 

[bobthegoalie]

Here we go again about how bad rebreathers are. When someone passes away on OC we don't talk about how the reg could have failed or a hose bursts or anything like that. But when a breather diver passes its always the unit that killed him/her. Being in the sport and learning about the highest technical piece of equipment out there you tend to look at diving in a different way. You will never pull the breather from me. I can prolly guess the computer the poster above me saw fail. Yes just like regs some CCRs are not the greatest. I feel better on a breather because I am in control. I put it together and I have faith in myself to do it right. If you call that complacency fine. But I know I will not let the unit kill me. I am in the minority so there will be plenty of posts bashing my views. That is why most CCR divers do not comment of stuff like this. Go ahead rip me apart just remember I will be sitting here enjoying every post.

To the missing diver. My condolences to the family and I hope they can get through this and still enjoy life as it should be.

 

[Ann Marie]

So sad. Does anyone have any updated news?

 

[Rick Murchison]

...A more through search was conducted the next day by several teams of technical divers both on rebreathers and scuba. The second search covered areas not in the original dive plan...

An Aircraft Carrier is HUGE. The gallery deck alone has over 300 separate spaces (rooms), some of which require going down a deck and back up just to get from one room to another. To search every space on that ship will take many people many months.
I lived on these things off and on for twenty years... there were spaces I only saw when assigned to inspect them, spaces hard to find even for residents of the ship, spaces not seen by human eyes for years between inspections... I once found a Bible that had been left in a void (a space with no formal use) some 20 years earlier on USS Ranger!
It may not take long to search all the likely places on Oriskany, but to search all the possible places is gonna take a while - if they're ever searched at all.
Rick