6 divers missing off Sangalaki

[HDVdiver]

You must have lived in a bit of Indonesia that doesn't have powercuts or island-wide internet outages, where the arrivals and departures boards in the airports always work, where there is mobile phone signal at all times, and where emails are sent to working email addresses accompanied by working websites. I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that's not the Derawans.

No need to be a smart arse. I've seen enough of Asia and the rest of the world to be aware of infrastructure limitations.

My point is that in every case of missing divers the Indonesian authorities have been alerted and did conduct a Search and Recue effort. The local authorities would be notified irrespective of a PLB.

The big advantage of a PLB is that Cospas-Sarsat WOULD notify a working telephone in Jakarta. The military would take over. The search...which would have happened anyway...would be a simple retrieval instead of a wasteful, random effort.

MCC for Indonesia:

MCC Code: 5250 Website: Badan SAR Nasional Telephone 1: (6221) 65701172 Telephone 2: (6221) 65867510 Facsimile: (6221) 65867512 AFTN: WIIIYCYL email: indonesia_mcc@yahoo.com Mailing Address: National Search and Rescue Agency (Badan SAR Nasional) Jln Angkasa Blok B15 Kav 2-3 Jakarta Pusat 10720 Indonesia ZIP code: 10720

But, hey...it's a free world. If you prefer to rely on a safety sausage instead of a PLB the choice is yours.

 

[PygmySeahorse]

No need to be a smart arse. I've seen enough of Asia and the rest of the world to be aware of infrastructure limitations.

Then I'm still mystified why you believe technology is the solution in this country. I live here. It doesn't do technology terribly well. Yet. You haven't really addressed this, apart from name-calling, so if you wouldn't mind explaining what experience of yours in Indonesia leads you to believe that government phone numbers have any longevity I'd be interested to hear.

The big advantage of a PLB is that Cospas-Sarsat WOULD notify a working telephone in Jakarta. The military would take over. The search...which would have happened anyway...would be a simple retrieval instead of a wasteful, random effort.

MCC for Indonesia:

MCC Code: 5250 Website: Badan SAR Nasional Telephone 1: (6221) 65701172 Telephone 2: (6221) 65867510 Facsimile: (6221) 65867512 AFTN: WIIIYCYL email: indonesia_mcc@yahoo.com Mailing Address: National Search and Rescue Agency (Badan SAR Nasional) Jln Angkasa Blok B15 Kav 2-3 Jakarta Pusat 10720 Indonesia ZIP code: 10720

To confirm my hypothesis that most Indonesian government phone numbers change more often than you could imagine, and that most Indonesian government phone numbers found on the internet are bunk, I just called these numbers. The first got fax noise, the second was out of service. I didn't bother trying the email address or the fax. You are, of course, welcome to try all of them. If you raise a human, I'd be interested to know how long it took. This is precisely the missing link I've been trying to point out.

But, hey...it's a free world. If you prefer to rely on a safety sausage instead of a PLB the choice is yours.

Yeah, I prefer to rely on diving with competent places with appropriate number of staff, radio-equipped boats, and boats plural so they can mount a search. If I were drifting mid-ocean relying on a bot calling either of those phone numbers - or whatever they replace them with for the next two weeks - I'd be rather less optimistic. Of course, you may raise a highly motivated human.

 

[PygmySeahorse]

I didn't bother trying the fax or the Yahoo email - since I've never known an Indonesian government Yahoo email to work (this may be the exception). I did try both phone numbers. One is a fax and the other is out of service. This is absolutely standard for Indonesia, which is why I'd rather rely on diving with well-run organisations with professional crew than smaller ops that lose their divers, and even then be super-cautious about where I dive and in what conditions.

***addition on small ops and Indonesia****
And I don't just mean Derawan Ocean Divers. I'm researching south Sulawesi at the moment, and a friend tells me a small dive shop lost TWO SEPARATE GROUPS of divers - one got to an island, another found a fishing boat - over the short period he was in Bira. It's an archipelago-wide issue, and the notion that a machine somewhere may be robodialing an unavailable number on Java does not reassure me in the slightest.

 

[KevinNM]

You are not encouraging me to add Indonesia to the list of places I really want to dive....

 

[PygmySeahorse]

Indonesia is wonderful - amazing diving at the heart of the coral triangle. Just, when it comes to safety, you are more-than-usually reliant on your specific boat. Incredible country. Come and visit. But come with your metaphorical hard-hat on.

 

[Kaltim Diver]

Some time ago a plane went down nearby where I live and work in East Kalimantan. Within hours it had been sighted out at sea, near one of our dive reefs, inland, and in nearby hills. It turned out to be in the hills. One of our divers is in the military and came to our club area where the navy had a number of boats, ostensibly for piracy but they rarely leave the port and incidents of piracy are virtual unheard of. The military guy asked me if we could use our dive boat to search. I agreed but asked about the navy. Of the three boats, one was broken and neither of the other had any fuel (despite this being supplied to them). There were also no persons available to operate the boats. While this is not representative of everywhere in Indonesia, it is not unusual. Even Bansarnas (S&R) are more likely to borrow local boats and the navy vessels if available due to a lack of their own gear. It's a big country, with lots of islands, and supported coverage would be very difficult even for a developed S&R team. 14,000 - 17,000 islands depending on which source you use. Check out Wowshack for maps overlaying other countries to give you a better idea. And despite the relatively small Java having a large proportion of the people, even there they have problems with S&R, even for land based rescues. So places like Papua, Kalimantan and some of the remote islands are going to really struggle. Personally I can see great benefits in some sort of PLB, but I would be reliant on my boat, not on my Indonesian S&R teams.

 

[charlier]

... Personally I can see great benefits in some sort of PLB, but I would be reliant on my boat, my experience and my team, not on my Indonesian S&R teams.

Kaltim Diver is on the mark. I added a few words to the last sentence.

 

[barbaroonie]

I echo the majesty of Indonesia as a dive destination-- been diving there since 1994. Don't let the spotty infrastructure deter you-- pick the best dive op you can find and carry a. PLB. About 7 years ago I was on a LOB I'd dived with at least 4x before and I got blown off a reef in Komodo when the weather went south during our dive and surface conditions turned pea soup, zero viz and heavy rains. 3 divers lashed ourselves together and tried to keep our humor as numerous fishing boats passed us by within yards but never saw us despite SMBs, air horns and whistles. The surface current was ripping and we drifted far away from the lob. 90 minutes later our tender zoomed around us a few times and finally located us. I should add that it was turnaround day on the LOB so they were very distracted and not as attentive as usual (and we were the only divers that day as we were staying 2 weeks.) Scary, yes; but not enough to put me off from Indonesian diving.

Is there any update on the divers off Derawan?

 

[cephalopod2]

Is there any update on the divers off Derawan?

The official search was called off in late August after ~10 days according to the news reports. Some family members were fundraising trying to extend the search - see Dalixa's post above.

Thank you very much for sharing that Komodo experience. Out of curiosity, were you at one of the 'Current City' area sites (Batu Bolong, etc) when that incident happened? Hopefully not South Rinca!

 

[Dalixa]

I have just read an interview on sky news of the sister of one of the missing divers.. Here in Italy media coverage is finished but she is trying to keep people interested and donating so as they can keep up the search with private helicopters in the hope that they are alive on some remote island as were three British divers in 2008 ( they were found after only a few days ).
she is not convinced of the divemaster Osland's version of the incident, puts his credentials to be in charge of a dive operation in doubt and questions the fact that he affirms to have lost his dive computer so it's impossible to check out at what depth the were. She also says that upon asking other dive operations if it was correct to leave the group to go looking for help, all unanimously reply that for psychological reasons the leader must never leave a group alone in the ocean.
she does not rule out fowl play in the form of some kind of kidnapping though no ransoms have been asked for because she says absolutely nothing, no equipment, tanks etc has been found anywhere....

---------- Post added September 12th, 2015 at 09:00 AM ----------

I have never been to Indonesia but I am beginning to think that maybe they never surfaced, a few years ago here we had a tragedy where four divers died together because they entered a blind ended tunnel instead of the planned and much larger swim through, someone panicked, caused a silt out and that was it! The divers following managed to back out and get to the boat on the surface for help, but it was a larger group, if there were only the four of them in the water and the dive master managed to save himself ( in our case he unfortunately didn't) what would have happened? Would he have admitted to taking OWD with no cave certification into an overhead environment or blame the elements and say he lost them on the surface? I am not an expert diver and many dive masters tend to overweight newer divers and not respect depth limits, could something have happened (a down current?), they became negative, panicked and drifted to the bottom of the ocean? Maybe Osland tried to save them and went to a great depth but did not succeed and so threw away the dive computer so that there is no record of the dive...