Accident at Cave Excursions

[Curt Bowen]

hey Curt I hope I didn't piss you off ! no disrespect was intended. can you tell me if anyone had on wool or woolblend clothes,
.

I dont think so, it is florida and the temps would be around 90 degrees

Probably cotton, as ussual

 

[Drew Sailbum]

I beleave a flash fire does not need the sustained chemical reaction your speaking of

There are several ways to put out a fire, but any fire requires those four components. Halon fire extinguishers disrupt the chemical chain reaction to extinguish a fire.

A flash fire of the sort in this incident is likely to extinguish due to rapidly consuming the available fuel. There was no lack of heat or oxygen and no indication that a chemical chain reaction was being inhibited.

You can have an explosion in the abscence of a sustained chemical reaction. The shock wave of an explosion can create a great deal of devastation. An explosion might arise from a fire, but combustion is not required for an explosion to occur. Similarly, the forces generated in an explosion might provide the energy needed to initiate combustion, assuming the other elements are present to support a fire.

Others have speculated that this incident may not have much to do with the fact that the cylinder contained oxygen. If a cylinder filled with argon exploded, much (though not all) of the damage would be similar.

A sudden shock, such as by dropping a cylinder, could cause a pre-existing crack to propogate until the point of catastrophic failure was reached. A detailed examination of the cylinder in this case might shed some light on this possibility.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Y'all are splitting hairs and getting wrapped around the semantic axle.
Whether you characterize what happened in this accident as a "fire" or an "explosion" or a "sustained chemical reaction" or anything in betwixt or between makes no difference. The tank rupture and resulting oxygen enhanced combustion of the available fuel was significant and fatal.
I think we all have a pretty good understanding of what the fire/explosion/reaction/whatever-you-want-to-call-it did, and what the ingredients had to be to get it. Quibbling over the "correctness" of the terminology is interesting (and I am oh, so tempted to join in ) but is to the point that it's "just taking up space" re: this accident.
Rick

 

[The Chairman]

Didn't she die of abdominal injuries? If so the resultant fire that we are fixating on is a moot point. Sure, a fire is way more Hollywood than a simple tank rupture but that appears to have been the root of this mayhem to begin with.

 

[jlayman800]

Actually Luxfer did a trade -in during all of 2003. You could ship it back and get a $50 trade-in voucher on a new tank from your local scuba shop. That deal ended December 31, 2003.

Yes, I was aware of the trade-in offer. It costs about $25.00 to ship a tank in to them and then you received a $50 voucher. In the mean time, you were renting tanks. Anyway, I thought it was too little too late. I still believe this will end with Luxfer replacing each of the tanks made of this material. Unfortunately, it will be too late for me. I traded in my last one a couple weeks ago.

You know, I distinctly remember a sticker that said "Lifetime Guarantee" when I bought those tanks almost 20 years ago. Then again, it was a long time ago. I could be wrong.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Didn't she die of abdominal injuries? If so the resultant fire that we are fixating on is a moot point. Sure, a fire is way more Hollywood than a simple tank rupture but that appears to have been the root of this mayhem to begin with.

Hard to say. The energy added to the entire event by the combustion may or may not have contributed to the injury. It is possible to recieve fatal injury from explosive overpressure alone. But again, it doesn't really matter, as without the tank failure in the first place nothing else would have followed. So it is appropriate to focus on how and why the tank failed as a way to prevent a repeat.
Rick

 

[427HEVN]

Luxfer just updated their news release. The major point seems to be that the tank is a 6061 alloy. Luxfer news link


August 23, 2004 — Investigators continue to believe that the July 27, 2004 incident in Luraville, Florida was caused when an operator was about to fill oxygen into a scuba cylinder that was not designed for oxygen use and, most probably the valve and/or cylinder had not been purged of all organic matter. Ignition from the fall caused the organic matter in the cylinder to burn, which caused the resulting fire and explosion.

Investigators have determined that the cylinder was made of aluminum alloy 6061. Investigators have ruled out the cylinder as a cause of the explosion.

 

[rcmcg]

I have written to the author of this story, Ms. Ciotola, twice now to try to find additional details. Nothing so far. This is of interest because I own some Pre-86 aluminum tanks from Luxfer. Luxfer will do nothing for the end user who has a tank that fails inspection. Their claim is that the tanks were only waranteed for 10 years. When I bought them, there was no such claim. When I replaced two other tanks, I insisted that they not have the Luxfer name on them. When I received my two new Faber tanks, I learned they were inported by Luxfer. Very sad.

I anxiously await any additional details you can find.

In defense of Luxfer, they admitted that there was a problem with the early alloy and although not issuing a recall they did offer a $50 certificate towards a new tank for any tank that was returned to them. I even returned one that sat in my garage for 10 years and had never been hydroed and failed . This was 3 years ago and they sent me a new one free. Last year they issued the "recall" notice and your dive shop should have told you about it when your vip was due. The program ended at the end of last year. There has been no problem whatsoever with the new alloy. The importrant thing to remember is storing the tanks when not in use is to only keep a few hundred psi in the tank as many of the cracks in tanks are caused by sustained load cracking, i.e. storing the tanks under high pressure for a long period. I sent my other tanks back for coupons and got new tanks. I figured my tanks cost me about $6 a year, a pretty good buy.

 

[fmw625]

Anybody heard any thing else about this accident? Just wanted to know if anything has been released lately.

 

[Xanthro]

What is really sad, is it appears that standard rubber work mats could have prevented this.

Does anyone know if there are reasons why impact mats can't be used around tanks?

Xanthro