I realize it's been 18+ years since, but I have been wanting to post something IRT to recovery work and the awesome collaboration between the LASD and our civilian team.
Out of respect for the family and teams involved, we chose to keep our comments to one source at the time, or at least tried to until one particular team member felt MHK was getting too much spotlight - which was our own collective creation since we all agreed at the time for the single point source.
Something that is perhaps not known after the first group of divers (the Sport Chalet clowns filling air into their OMS dubs) that made the attempt to recover, there was also a second "experienced and highly trained recovery diver" (LASD's words) who "advertised" himself as the overall leader in deep diving training and experience to the family.
When we showed up on day one of our call-out by LASD SEB, he just was being escorted off the site by deputies after not only telling the families he guaranteed finding the bodies hours after the accident, but also took non-refundable $$$$ from them in advance of his "guarantee" and efforts. He aborted two attempts on the general site where the vessel has been tied off 90% submerged due to "low visibility". LASD reported to us that he said he got to the bottom at 290', but had no way of searching due to the murky bottom. Being the definitive fact finders LASD are, one member of the Sheriff's SEB team looked at his dive computer and saw his depth for the second dive was only 122 ft for 14 mins. He was obviously a fake when we heard that report.
We were additionally not sure how he could make such recovery success prediction claims to the family since at that time no one knew where the targets were until the then cutting-edge CP SONAR was secured from the San Bernardoo SD (on loan from a UT agency, which SBSD later outright purchased it from). The CP scans were first done on the day we showed up and after the first two collective recoveries were attempted.
Having worked with the LASD SEB before, they recognized the guy as the fraud he was and contacted us after the family voiced disdain for the way he was taking advantage of the situation from their POV.
The clincher on this "cowboy" who made all the empty promises and took all that money from the family dies on the beach a few months later post dive due to three contributing factors;
Per a recalled report from San Diego County Sheriff (pp);
Diving a CC rebreather and experiencing a catastrophic failure with no bail-out bottle
Diving a technical dive with absolutely no buddy or support in the area
Diving with severe obesity limiting his ability to physically reach a knob on the kit itself while wearing it
They surmised all three points were contributing factors in his death.
Oh yeah, the LASD did provision their Sikorsky H-3 Sea King RESCUE 5 helo to assist us or anyone whom may have become injured in any activity taken during the recovery. It stood by on the lower parking lot adjacent to the County Sheriff Lifeguard Station on the NW end of Castaic dam. I joked to Kendall when we saw it that his chariot was here for the Wrigley USC Chamber ride he will be surely be taking. But anyone who knows Kendall knows that sure as Hell wasn't happening.
