2 Finnish divers dead, 3 injured in Plurdalen / Norway

[KellyAsh]

I read through the previous posts and didn't see whether their multiple CCR units were set up in tandem in order to double scrubber life or as redundant systems in case of failure. Did I miss it or was this information not given?

 

[gianaameri]

I read through the previous posts and didn't see whether their multiple CCR units were set up in tandem in order to double scrubber life or as redundant systems in case of failure. Did I miss it or was this information not given?

"The estimated dive time was five hours, with maximum planned depth of 129 meters. A bail-out plan was communicated with the both teams, and adequate bail-out gas and bailout rebreathers were carried along."

Fact is, the plan was not as "adequate" as originally thought and 2 divers one from each time died (same place, same circumstances).

 

[Tigerman]

AFAIK the information was not given and there was no specific information given of wether and/or how the extra gear was intended to be and/or used beyond the fact that the 2nd casualty switched over to bailout gas (OC?) before he died

 

[gianaameri]

AFAIK the information was not given and there was no specific information given of wether and/or how the extra gear was intended to be used..

Nope, they said the rebreathers were for bail-out here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-iDm0Pmt3MYU3hxb0tZS3llTGpWVnZ0RWlPeDY5NTJybFVF/edit?pli=1

 

[Tigerman]

..
Fact is, the plan was not as "adequate" as originally thought and 2 divers one from each time died (same place, same circumstances).

No, the FACT is that it COULD be the plan that was not sufficient OR that the actions of the divers who had issues that was insufficient or even both. We don't know which one at the moment and may never..

 

[gianaameri]

No, the FACT is that it COULD be the plan that was not sufficient OR that the actions of the divers who had issues that was insufficient or even both. We don't know which one at the moment and may never..

Nope.

We know that one diver bailed-out, but died.

The bail-out plan failed to deliver in its intended result.

The reason (hypothesis, not fact) is because when you breathe bad gas at depth from a rebreather, usually it is too late to recover from the poisoning.

It is lunacy or wishful thinking to plan the dive assuming on rebreather you can "feel" the CO2 or the bad gas and respond in time to save yourself by bailing-out.

 

[Tigerman]

Nope, they said the rebreathers were for bail-out here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-iDm0Pmt3MYU3hxb0tZS3llTGpWVnZ0RWlPeDY5NTJybFVF/edit?pli=1

Sorry, missed that line about the rebreathers being bailout. Did not however specify which bailout the 2nd casualty was on nor that the 1st casualty used any bailout..

 

[Nirvana]

There is something I did not understand from the reports that I hope someone could help me with.

The first team went in, one of the divers perished and the remaining diver made his way to the exit. It is stated in one report that, when at 12m, this diver got into contacted with the second team. Is this information confirmed? If so, why then did the second team proceed? Did a communication error occur or did they expect to recover the body?

 

[gianaameri]

There is something I did not understand from the reports that I hope someone could help me with.

The first team went in, one of the divers perished and the remaining diver made his way to the exit. It is stated in one report that, when at 12m, this diver got into contacted with the second team. Is this information confirmed? If so, why then did the second team proceed? Did a communication error occur or did they expect to recover the body?

The second team entered the water 2 hours after the first team.

So, they would not have known about the dead diver.

What is not clear is why the second team did not immediately turn the dive upon finding a dead body instead of continuing on the traverse.

These are tough decisions to make on the spot bearing in mind that at 4C deep on rebreather in a cave meeting face to face a dead body one does not necessarily think too clearly.

However, (speculation) I suspect that Team 2 having already passed the deep section and being at 110 meters felt it was "safer" to stick to the plan.

I would have not tried to negotiate the restriction at 110 meters, but meeting a dead body at (or stuck in) the restriction I would have turned the dive immediately.

Maybe (hypothesis, not fact) for Team 2 to proceed through the restriction (and attempt an unplanned body recovery at 110 meters...) is another lesson to be learned (i.e. don't do it and turn the dive immediately) from this diving incident.

 

[Redshift]

Fact is, the plan was not as "adequate" as originally thought and 2 divers one from each time died (same place, same circumstances).

You are jumping to conclusions and determine the cause of death as being due to a poor plan. Unless you consider to be poor planing the fact that plans never take into account everything that can happen. For a certain kind of dives, like this, trying to do that would make them impracticable. For some people that would be too great of a risk, for others it's an acceptable risk. To know better what went wrong and what could be changed we'd need more detailed information that I hope will be brought forward by the other members of the team.

On the other hand, I like the discussion of how one could do such a dive, as you have started when mentioning equipment and the swap to OC for the deeper part.