Diver dies trapped in wreck in Gran Canaria

[oceancurrent]

That video gives me anxiety just watching it. I’m not at all interested in wreck penetration or cave diving.

Technical/cave diving is not for everyone, that's for sure.

Swimming around a deep wreck would be an advanced sport dive. Penetrating it is a technical/cave dive. Does not sound like the victim or the group were tech/cave divers. Taking sport divers on a cave/tech dive seems far too common in the Mediterranean, as indicated by the history of group fatalities in the caves of Italy, for example. It sounds like the same sort of business is going on on the Canaries as well.

 

[boulderjohn]

Swimming around a deep wreck would be an advanced sport dive. Penetrating it is a technical/cave dive.

That is actually not true. I had a long discussion about this with PADI a couple years ago, and their language regarding this is quite confusing and misleading, as they admitted. They asked me to suggest different language, and I supplied it. They said they would use it when the wreck diving course is revised (no precise plans). They published some of my newer language in their professional journal (Undersea Journal) two years ago.

Here are some highlights, both from the existing course and the updated changed language. Note that the new language described is not considered to be new policy. It is considered to be a better description of existing policy.

• Penetrating a wreck is taught in the basic wreck diving course, which is a recreational level course, and it has never required any kind of technical or cave diving certification.
• Penetration specifically means entering and exiting from the same location.
• Entering one location and and exiting another location is a swim-through, not a penetration. It is not even mentioned in the existing wreck course. Believe it or not, a swim-through is not considered an overhead environment in their terminology. This is a serious problem, since there is a wide range of difficulty in swim-throughs. My newer language defines a swim-through, describes the various degrees of difficulty in swim-throughs, and describes the kind of training and experience needed to do those various degrees of risk and difficulty.
• The new language also describes the various degrees of difficulty in penetrations and the level of training and experience needed for them.
• The new language describes the importance of using good judgment in evaluating one's level of training and experience to determine if they are appropriate for the planned dive.

 

[falcon125]

I had assumed "Swim Through" Meant you could see the exit from the entrance.

 

[boulderjohn]

I had assumed "Swim Through" Meant you could see the exit from the entrance.

That would be true at a basic level. In a more advanced level, you would not be able to see the exit wbut would be certain it is there before you enter.

The difference is that with a swim-through, laying a line would be inappropropriate. With a penetration, you would lay line except in very simple cases where you aren't going in out of easy site of your entrance. If you are not sure there is an exit to a potential swim-through, you would, of course, treat it as a penetration.

I dive simple recreational level wrecks in Florida with great frequency. People weave through those things all the time; the routes through them are well known.

 

[Biotech Diver]

Technical/cave diving is not for everyone, that's for sure.

Swimming around a deep wreck would be an advanced sport dive. Penetrating it is a technical/cave dive. Does not sound like the victim or the group were tech/cave divers. Taking sport divers on a cave/tech dive seems far too common in the Mediterranean, as indicated by the history of group fatalities in the caves of Italy, for example. It sounds like the same sort of business is going on on the Canaries as well.

Technical/cave diving is not for everyone, that's for sure.

Swimming around a deep wreck would be an advanced sport dive. Penetrating it is a technical/cave dive. Does not sound like the victim or the group were tech/cave divers. Taking sport divers on a cave/tech dive seems far too common in the Mediterranean, as indicated by the history of group fatalities in the caves of Italy, for example. It sounds like the same sort of business is going on on the Canaries as well.

I just started a tech diving course because I want to be able to dive at deeper depths and see a part of the ocean I haven’t experienced yet. I’m much more interested in marine life than wrecks, but wrecks are fun too and host a lot of marine life,of course. I’m just not interested in diving in confined spaces. I’ve done some wreck penetrations in various parts of the world but doubt I’d ever want to do anything similar to that wreck in the video.

 

[nolatom]

I had assumed "Swim Through" Meant you could see the exit from the entrance.

So did I. Shows what I (don't) know. And one more reason why I am happy to not be a wreck or cave diver. Caves, at least some of them I guess, are at least a beautiful place to die. Wrecks, not so much.

I'll swim through a ship wheelhouse from side (bridge wing) door to the opposite door, as long as there are also a bunch of forward-facing windows with no glass and big enough to serve as an alternate exit in the event I screw up the visibilty with silt, or just chicken out.

I'm thinking of the Oriskany, off Pensacola as an example. Being a Carrier, the "island" bridges are narrow sideways, so the doors aren't that far apart.

 

[boulderjohn]

So did I. Shows what I (don't) know.

You don't know because pretty much nobody knows. It is not defined in any existing literature that I know of.

I suspect that is intentional. In my discussions with PADI, I pointed this out. To cut to the end of the discussion, they said that defining this is unnecessary because dive operations around the world already understand this. They agreed with me that dive operations all over the world allow (or even lead) dives through coral swim-throughs, lava tubes, and basic wrecks, and they do so without anything in writing saying it is OK to do so. To me, that meant there needs to be something in writing. To them, it meant putting it in writing was unnecessary. Everyone already knows it is OK, they said. My suspicion is that lawyers explained to them that if they don't have anything in writing saying it is OK, then they will not be blamed in case something goes wrong somewhere.

 

[boulderjohn]

My discussions with PADI on this topic began after a wreck dive in south Florida on a very nice wreck called the Lady Luck. The DM, whom I knew well and who was actually a tech instructor, went in to set the descent line and then came up to give a very nice dive briefing. In that briefing, he described swim-throughs in places like the wheel house "for those who have the appropriate certification."

Before I entered the water, I waved him over and asked him quietly what the appropriate certification was for these divers to do those swim-throughs. He laughed, because he believed as well as I did that there is no such certification. His statement was pure CYA--if you go in without the certification (which doesn't exist), you were on your own if something went wrong. It was not until later that I learned that those swim throughs are considered open water and do not require any certification at all--but that is not stated anywhere in any literature. Once again, CYA.

 

[OTF]

As this thread goes deeper into a discussion of wreck penetration qualifications I think it's important to say that at this point we have no idea what actually happened to this woman - maybe she had no business being in that obviously dangerous wreck, or maybe she was incredibly qualified and had some other emergency on what would otherwise be an easy dive for her. We don't know now, and we might never find out.

 

[Swedinsidemount]

Technically those are contributing factors. The cause of the incident was failure to surface before air exhaustion due to ... being unable to exit the overhead environment.

To add to that, probably never had a sought out plan and reliable buddies as well as a trail line. If they would have dove with a real group somebody would have been alerted and this never would have happened. My deepest condolences....