3 unaccounted for after a flooded magnesite mine 'Maria Concordia' dive in Poland
- Thread starter Hiszpan
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Maybe instructors have to get a waiver? I did my cavern/intro to cave course in a former lead and zinc mine in the US Midwest. I dive there on a regular basis during the winter. But there is nothing in the tunnels - no machinery, structures, wires, etc., just tunnels so big they drove trucks through them for the portion I did my cavern/intro course in. The tunnels were dug out of solid rock and there are no timbers holding up the ceiling. It’s on private land, instructor is the key holder, and you’re not allowed to dive there unless you’re a current or former student.
iwona_76
Registered
I haven't used a forum like this before, and I can't quote individual statements. So I will answer collectively to your most important questions / comments:
1. I also didn`t know that the cave course cannot be conducted in a mine (as Witold Hoffmann claims). The instructor is the person who should know and follow the training standards of his federation.
2. From what I heard, the IANTD standards (I do not know how other federations - the instructor during the accident was an instructor of the IANTD federation) do not directly follow that cave courses CANNOT be conducted in the mine. These standards indicate i.a. in how many caves such a course should be conducted (it is about providing different training conditions). I assume that the authors of the cave training standards did not just anticipate that someone would one day come up with a separate course called Mine diver. If someone is willing and has such possibilities, he can check which federation introduced the Mine diver training and when.
3. The instructor may or may not report to us that he will be performing a course dive. Our mine is very well suited for any type of overhead training, as long as the planned exercises are tailored to the specificity of the dive site. The mine is very easy to navigate and you can perform many exercises during the Intro to cave or cave course, for example from the so-called rope protocol (I hope I used the correct phrase in English). Not every place in the mine has a risk of dust / sediment build-up (and the instructor knew it well).
4. You can ask the students of the unfortunate course (or actually only the one survivor) whether the choice of the place for the cave course (in the mine) raised their doubts. You cannot forget (see the report) that it was an advanced course for advanced divers (one of the divers even had Full Tmx qualifications).
5. The instructor was NOT working as an employee or a representative of the mine during the accident. He was teaching as an independent instructor. As the administration of the mine, we do not run courses (at least not yet) - we simply provide external instructors / diving schools with a place to dive - we "rent" the mine (but basically there are no courses in the mine - most often we have cave / mine divers for „normal” diving, ie for visiting the mine).
6. Generally, both in our mine and in the Kowary Uranium Mine, where we also organize dives, divers with Cave or Mine diver qualifications can dive. Unless you assume that the Cave diver cannot dive into a mine and that the Mine diver cannot dive into the cave.
1. I also didn`t know that the cave course cannot be conducted in a mine (as Witold Hoffmann claims). The instructor is the person who should know and follow the training standards of his federation.
2. From what I heard, the IANTD standards (I do not know how other federations - the instructor during the accident was an instructor of the IANTD federation) do not directly follow that cave courses CANNOT be conducted in the mine. These standards indicate i.a. in how many caves such a course should be conducted (it is about providing different training conditions). I assume that the authors of the cave training standards did not just anticipate that someone would one day come up with a separate course called Mine diver. If someone is willing and has such possibilities, he can check which federation introduced the Mine diver training and when.
3. The instructor may or may not report to us that he will be performing a course dive. Our mine is very well suited for any type of overhead training, as long as the planned exercises are tailored to the specificity of the dive site. The mine is very easy to navigate and you can perform many exercises during the Intro to cave or cave course, for example from the so-called rope protocol (I hope I used the correct phrase in English). Not every place in the mine has a risk of dust / sediment build-up (and the instructor knew it well).
4. You can ask the students of the unfortunate course (or actually only the one survivor) whether the choice of the place for the cave course (in the mine) raised their doubts. You cannot forget (see the report) that it was an advanced course for advanced divers (one of the divers even had Full Tmx qualifications).
5. The instructor was NOT working as an employee or a representative of the mine during the accident. He was teaching as an independent instructor. As the administration of the mine, we do not run courses (at least not yet) - we simply provide external instructors / diving schools with a place to dive - we "rent" the mine (but basically there are no courses in the mine - most often we have cave / mine divers for „normal” diving, ie for visiting the mine).
6. Generally, both in our mine and in the Kowary Uranium Mine, where we also organize dives, divers with Cave or Mine diver qualifications can dive. Unless you assume that the Cave diver cannot dive into a mine and that the Mine diver cannot dive into the cave.
And he was both a mine and cave instructor.
IANTD Standards and Procedures Manual - year 2010
I have read the relevant chapters and found explicit references that say a Cave Diver course has to be conducted in a cave, while a Mine Diver course needs to have a mine dive. I will share the quotations:
1) Wreck, Limited Mine and Cavern Diver (page 44) - only those introductory courses specify 'overhead environment' (C6) with no distinction on wreck, cave or mine.
2) Introductory Cave Diver (page 46) - references cave as a place of training in the following subsections: C1, C2, E1, G2, G3, G7 and G8. Does not mention mine as a place of training (participants of feral dive completed this course in Maria Concordia.)
3) Cave Diver (page 83) - references cave as a place of training in the following subsections: C3, C6 (both specify a minimum of Cave bottom time during the course), C9 (specifying a minimum of 3 different caves unless waived by the HQ - arguably the waiver here would not substitute a cave for a mine but reduce the variety of caves from 3 to 2 or 1), F1, F13, F14, F18, F20 (I am only referencing OC standards and not RB)
4) Mine Diver (page 87) - clearly distinguished from Cave Diver qualification with separate requirements:
- A3 specifies the course is for those who cannot access natural caves
- C3 specifies at least 120 minutes of Mine bottom time
- C4 specifies a Mine as an environmental condition (only 1 mine, therefore, is enough to complete the whole course)
- E2 specifies max depths for the dives which can be conducted in either a cave or a mine (notice the absence of such choice in the Cave Diver course requirements section, which only specifies caves)
- F19,20 and 22 specify a mine dive for the exercise
- G1 does allow doors, and gates as restrictions - would the mine dam that participants of the course had to negotiate be allowed on such course? (if we want to argue this was a Mine Diver course)
- G2 specifies the course might be taught entirely in mines without the need for a waiver from HQ
Additionally, Qualification Renewal for Cave or Mine Instructors (pages 136 and 138) specify that Cave Instructor need to complete at least 20 cave dives per year (G3), while Mine Instructor can do 20 cave or mine dives. I conclude that Cave Instructor cannot count mine dives towards his 20 requirement as they are not the same (i.e. less demanding), while Mine Instructor can include cave dives in his 20 requirement as those will be at least as difficult as mine dives.
Ultimately, there would not be 2 different courses if those qualifications were interchangeable.
ADDiving had a calendar with events specifying cave courses in Maria Concordia. You might not have known about those.
iwona_76
Registered
@Hiszpan
Thank you for sharing it, good job and great analysis
However, as I have already mentioned, these standards apply to instructors and instructors are obliged to meet them. I do not question the existence of standards, but another aspect of such standards can be considered - they do not constitute (at least in Poland) applicable law. They are certain rules established by PRIVATE companies - diving federations.
I will say more, in Poland you can currently dive without any diving qualifications (until 2010, diving required having appropriate qualifications confirmed by an appropriate document).
So for now, a OWD, Cave or similar certificate is a document issued by a private company that only certifies that you have completed a course with that private company. These are not documents such as, for example, a driving license - because you must have a state "license" to drive a car.
As for the ADDiving calendar - I found out about this calendar from this forum, but it doesn't matter. I assume that it was simply an offer of diving courses or diving trips that everyone could get acquainted with. I asked my friends about this schedule and found out that not always events visible in the calendar took place (e.g. there were not enough people willing).
You need to know what the MC Mine booking process looks like (and frankly speaking, I don't think we apply any different rules than people running a similar business). The interested person sends us an e-mail inquiry about a free date and indicates that he wants to come with, for example, 3 divers. He receives an email from us with a preliminary booking confirmation, details for the advance payment and various documents to read, including the mine's regulations. After the advance payment is made, the reservation is confirmed. I do not follow or find out if the person who made the reservation (and is from some diving center, for example) announces it on their website. The mine regulations clearly indicate what qualifications we, as a mine, require for diving. It also indicates that it is possible to dive without the required qualifications as long as the diver is under the supervision of an instructor and the dive is a training dive. The regulations clearly state that you can only dive where there are lines (as you know, there were no lines in the side corridor).
We can write different things in the regulations. We can also ban cave courses and allow Mine diver courses. We can also ban course dives altogether, and allow typical "overhead diving workshops". If that unfortunate dive a year ago was an "overhead dive workshop", would it change anything? Diving accidents are virtually never due to equipment failure. The diver is the weakest link in this sport.
Thank you for sharing it, good job and great analysis
However, as I have already mentioned, these standards apply to instructors and instructors are obliged to meet them. I do not question the existence of standards, but another aspect of such standards can be considered - they do not constitute (at least in Poland) applicable law. They are certain rules established by PRIVATE companies - diving federations.I will say more, in Poland you can currently dive without any diving qualifications (until 2010, diving required having appropriate qualifications confirmed by an appropriate document).
So for now, a OWD, Cave or similar certificate is a document issued by a private company that only certifies that you have completed a course with that private company. These are not documents such as, for example, a driving license - because you must have a state "license" to drive a car.
As for the ADDiving calendar - I found out about this calendar from this forum, but it doesn't matter. I assume that it was simply an offer of diving courses or diving trips that everyone could get acquainted with. I asked my friends about this schedule and found out that not always events visible in the calendar took place (e.g. there were not enough people willing).
You need to know what the MC Mine booking process looks like (and frankly speaking, I don't think we apply any different rules than people running a similar business). The interested person sends us an e-mail inquiry about a free date and indicates that he wants to come with, for example, 3 divers. He receives an email from us with a preliminary booking confirmation, details for the advance payment and various documents to read, including the mine's regulations. After the advance payment is made, the reservation is confirmed. I do not follow or find out if the person who made the reservation (and is from some diving center, for example) announces it on their website. The mine regulations clearly indicate what qualifications we, as a mine, require for diving. It also indicates that it is possible to dive without the required qualifications as long as the diver is under the supervision of an instructor and the dive is a training dive. The regulations clearly state that you can only dive where there are lines (as you know, there were no lines in the side corridor).
We can write different things in the regulations. We can also ban cave courses and allow Mine diver courses. We can also ban course dives altogether, and allow typical "overhead diving workshops". If that unfortunate dive a year ago was an "overhead dive workshop", would it change anything? Diving accidents are virtually never due to equipment failure. The diver is the weakest link in this sport.
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