American missing off of Batangas - Philippines

[DandyDon]

American scuba diver missing at sea off Batangas

A search and rescue operation began Thursday morning for the missing American scuba diver who failed to surface after a dive on Wednesday afternoon off Mabini in Batangas.

Super Radyo dzBB's Carlo Mateo reported on "Dobol B sa News TV" that the missing American diver —Andrew Kildride —went missing after diving at the Cathedral dive site off Anilao town.

Kildride, with a buddy, dived at about 4 p.m. but he has not surfaced and has gone missing, the report said.
Local divers from the resorts owners' association in Mabini town in Batangas said that the dive site was deep and the water current was strong.
The association on Thursday morning asked the help of the Philippine Coast Guard—which has deployed members of its special operations force—for the search and rescue operation. —LBG, GMA News

 

[Jack Hammer]

Best wishes

 

[pubert]

Body of Aussie diver found in Batangas

 

[Scott]

What is the visibility like in Batangas?

 

[Jack Hammer]

Sad news. The news reports are contradictory, was he American or Australian?

 

[Maverick17]

A lot of detail at another site. I don't know how to insert it all Dandy Don style (or how accurate), but link is below.

"Based on an initial report filed with the Coast Guard, Mr Kilbride was unable to surface after his wing type buoyancy compensator device became detached from the back plate.

Borgaud supposedly assisted Kilbride when he found him ascending uncontrollably, giving his “25 per cent travel gas” when he found his oxygen tank empty.

But it wasn’t enough, and the strong undersea currents made matter worse.

Kilbride reportedly ascended slowly. Borgaud tried to wait for him at 21 metres below the surface, but he was unable to surface.

A police report said Kilbride — who some sources say was from the tiny island republic of Nauru — was undergoing a trimix course, the use of breathing gas in scuba diving, when he went missing."


Story Here

 

[Scott]

Wing becoming detached from backplate?
Initial thought is he was diving Sidemount. Pretty hard to detach a wing in BM.
No redundant buoyancy devices required?

 

[Jack Hammer]

Too much contradiction in that article to make any sense. More likely a failure in his inflator or hose (stuck) would cause ascending uncontrollably. Detached suggests a inflator came off, or the hose between wing, or even an argon bottle coming off. Detached wing and ascending uncontrollably are at opposites to each other. Later they say he was ascending slowly??

donating a bottle of travel gas insread of donating a hose doesn't make sense either. It sounds like he had some sort of equipment issues during the course, and may or may not have been able to fix them along the way, and things kept spiraling. Regardless its a sad loss.

 

[Dan]

Sad! Condolences to his family & friends.
​

"...Borgaud supposedly assisted Kilbride when he found him ascending uncontrollably, giving his “25 per cent travel gas” when he found his oxygen tank empty..."

I don't understand the above quoted sentence. Who was ascending uncontrollably?

 

[Maverick17]

The writing is a bit hard to understand, but having read it a number of times this is what I get from it:
1 - instructor sees victim out of control of some sort but is able to get to him
2 - sees the gear problem
3 - also sees he's out of gas, so gives him the "travel gas"
4 - instructor keeps ascending, but victim is now unable to ascend further and unable to deal with current, for whatever reasons

Practically speaking I don't know if any of that makes sense. I'm not a good diver and never used a wing etc. But that's what it seems to me the writing is trying to convey. Those of us who've spent time in this forum though know writers often don't know how things work and make mistakes, so maybe it's off (or I'm off).

Also just noting a tagalog language page said the victim was living in Manila for six years now.