Basic SCUBA (Air Supply) Equipment Faliure: How frequent does it happen?

[debajo agua]

I'd like to hear your stories of basic equipment failure while diving, near misses, or no failures after X amount of dives. When I say "Basic SCUBA/OW equipment" I am referring to tanks, valves, first stage, second stages, hoses, Octo's, BCDs, and gauges.

It is my impression, that of all the accidents and near misses, air-supply failure (e.g. blown o-rings, burst disc, malfunctioning 1st or 2nd stage) are rarely the culprit. My impression is that human error kills the majority of divers, I believe I'm correct in assuming so; so please, relate to the thread your stories, or lack thereof.

 

[flots am]

I'd like to hear your stories of basic equipment failure while diving, near misses, or no failures after X amount of dives. When I say "Basic SCUBA/OW equipment" I am referring to tanks, valves, first stage, second stages, hoses, Octo's, BCDs, and gauges.

It is my impression, that of all the accidents and near misses, air-supply failure (e.g. blown o-rings, burst disc, malfunctioning 1st or 2nd stage) are rarely the culprit. My impression is that human error kills the majority of divers, I believe I'm correct in assuming so; so please, relate to the thread your stories, or lack thereof.

Lot of equipment fails. Eventually all of it will. However if any of it presents a danger on an Open Water dive, it's a training problem.

From my understanding of fatalities, it's:

1. Diving outside current training/skill level
2. Bad judgement
3. Medical problems
4. Bad gas

1 & 2 are pretty much the same thing.

No Open Water equipment is "life support", since by definition, a safe ascent to the surface is always possible on an Open Water dive.

flots.

 

[Scott]

Plenty of reading in Accidents and Incidents and Near Misses and Lessons Learned

I agree with flots list.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Properly maintained equipment does not fail, or rarely fails. I have just under 1000 dives with no failures. My wife Debbie has about 250 dives with no failures. Debbie has used the same gear for ten years, keeps is well maintained and properly stored, and it functions perfectly. Now, all equipment must eventually be retired, because there is erosion and deterioration over time. But equipment failure is most likely due to improper maintenance or lack of maintenance or failure to inspect regularly, as in the case of tanks.
DivemasterDennis

 

[tracydr]

Properly maintained equipment does not fail, or rarely fails. I have just under 1000 dives with no failures. My wife Debbie has about 250 dives with no failures. Debbie has used the same gear for ten years, keeps is well maintained and properly stored, and it functions perfectly. Now, all equipment must eventually be retired, because there is erosion and deterioration over time. But equipment failure is most likely due to improper maintenance or lack of maintenance or failure to inspect regularly, as in the case of tanks.
DivemasterDennis

Actually, I've had a couple free flows caused by bits of sand in my second stage. Usually, I've been rolled in the surf prior to this happening. I don't think I abuse my equipment. I guess I could go and get my reg serviced every time I fall down but that's pretty silly, especially if I'm still diving. Sometimes, it's been on the same dive, since I've gotten back up, entered the surf and experienced a free flow shortly after getting to depth. One free flow happened even though the second stage had been serviced but a bit of sand was missed.
So, if you shore dive, sand can get in your equipment and cause free flows. Free flows can also happen from extremely cold conditions, which have nothing to do with maintenance.
If you only do tropical boat dives, I agree, you will probably never have a failure if you maintain your gear. Add shore diving, cave diving, extremely cold water or surface temps, sediment in the water or current and all bets are off.

 

[herman]

I have been diving since 92 and have several thousand dive....I lost tack. In that time I have had 3 or 4 failures all of which fall into the nusience catagory and no where near life threating. One hp hose started leaking, it developed a leak somewhere in the inner wall and one slight freeflow due to creeping ip (turned out to be a defective/worn oring in the reg). The others were HP spool orings that started leaking. In all cases the failure was not a safety issue but rather a "well, got to fix this reg after the dive" problem. Granted, I was doing fairly shallow easy dives with plenty of experienced buddies near by, had things gotten worse I had several good bailout options. If the dives had been a much deeper or more advanced I may have aborted the dive.
Bottom line is, regs are very reliable pieces of gear and if maintained and cared for, they are unlikely to fail. And if they do, most of the time it is a slight failure that is more warning than a safety issue. Keep it serviced, check it's IP regulary and practice emergency proceedures. If you do, reg failure is not going to be anything more than a PITA.

 

[TSandM]

Between me and my husband, we have close to 2500 dives.

I've had two violent freeflows that could not be stopped. One was probably a first stage freezing event (reg was serviced after it happened and nothing untoward was found). The other was sand in a reg due to being rolled in the surf at Monastery Beach. Peter has had a slow freeflow leak that we couldn't stop underwater and that required turning the dive early and going home. We had a burst disc go on a tank once, but the tank was on the bench on the boat.

We've had a number of other issues that were caught during the pre-dive process and were either fixed or caused us to scrub the dive. But nothing we missed on the pre-dive that caused problems underwater.

Regulators are really extremely reliable if cared for at all, and today's designs are set up to fail as freeflows the majority of the time.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am near the 1,000 dive threshold, and all the underwater failures I have experienced were of the nuisance variety. Here is the complete list, at least as far as I can remember.

1. As we were beginning a descent, one of the team members signaled that I was starting to get bubbles. It was from where my SPG attaches to the hose (spool). It wasn't all that bad, but I ended the dive and fixed it on shore.

2. I had a very slight free flow from my alternate. I turned the knob to detune it, and it stopped.

3. I borrowed a very heavily used doubles wing for a dive. As I was ascending and needed to dump air, I reached back to pull on the rear dump string. The entire valve tore off and came out in my hand, leaving the hole wide open. Because I was at the end of the dive, I did not need much air to be neutrally buoyant, so I just let my legs drop a little so the shoulder area would be the high point and the air would be trapped there.

There may have been others, but they were evidently less memorable than those.

When you read the narratives in the DAN fatality reports, you almost never find a problem related to equipment problems. The exceptions that come to mind are with rebreathers, and those failures are rare.

 

[mala]

I had a low pressure hose go pop in 2003 at about 20m .

and a suunto died on me at 50m in 2005.

that's it.

bit boring really.



edit

the most common failure I have witnessed would be integrated weight pockets falling out.

 

[flots am]

I am near the 1,000 dive threshold, and all the underwater failures I have experienced were of the nuisance variety. Here is the complete list, at least as far as I can remember.

As long as we're listing actual failures, here are mine:

Problem: BC inflator hose (thick corrugated hose, not LP hose from reg) tore on a wall dive. BC wouldn't hold air.
Result: Wasn't over-weighted. Swam back to the surface and got back on the boat. Had hose replaced. Since this was my #7 dive ever, I remembered what my instructor had said about "when something doesn't seem right", and refused the DM's offer of a duct tape repair.

Problem: Cold water freeflow on a single tank.
Result: Surfaced, turned off tank, returned to shore. Had reg serviced (should not have been freezable). Started bringing a pony with it's own cold water reg on all dives.

Problem: Computer said "E7" and died.
Result: Swam back to the surface and returned to shore. Sent computer in for service.

That's about it for equipment failures.

flots.