Inspiration Fatalities

[andibk]

List,
Does anyone have any information on the Inspiration fatality from Pennsylvania. I'm planning on doing this course but this definetly makes you think and wonder. I have heard reports of past accidents and they report diver error. How many times can they keep saying this?

Bruce

 

[nickjb]

I think you could put 'diver error' on most diving accident reports, OC or rebreather.

 

[Ladydiver]

try this thread.

 

[Grajan]

I am in the offshore construction industry and am, to some extent, involved in safety management.

The 'Operator error' story simply no longer cuts it. When root cause analysis is carried out on accidents the result is almost always a complex amalgam of systemic issues including; Procedures, Supervision, Equipment, Training etc.

The 'operator' may well have made a mistake or even done something stupid but the system needs, to some extent, to either eliminate that possibility or be capable of dealing with it.

The offshore construction business is addressing safety at a systemic level. The penalties for unsafe operations are enormous. The result is a very low level of accidents in an extremely hazardous environment.

The sport diving industry has, at best, paid lip service to this systematic approach to safety and conseqently has an accident rate that would simply not be tolerated in the industry.

From what I can see, with too much money swimming about, too many "regulating authorities", and too many divers who are "too good to regulate" nothing is going to change in a hurry.

I do not have the figures but general aviation would make an interesting comparison to sport diving. It is another activity that is practiced privately and is posibly more unforgiving of errors. The difference is that training standards, equipment standards, procedures, etc. are all federally regulated (and yes it is STILL fun).

I wonder what the fatality rate per hour of air time would be compared to the rate per hour of dive time????

Graham

P.S. I would agree that DIR is a form of self regulation that addresses many of these systemic issues but it is, to my mind, overly prescriptive. At lease GA accomodates more than one type of aircraft....... Our experience in industry is that overly prescriptive solutions fail due to lack of inclusivity. :boom:

Perhaps this is just the swing of the pendulum.

 

[padiscubapro]

andibk once bubbled...
List,
Does anyone have any information on the Inspiration fatality from Pennsylvania. I'm planning on doing this course but this definetly makes you think and wonder. I have heard reports of past accidents and they report diver error. How many times can they keep saying this?

Bruce

Bruce,

I haven't seen any info solid info about it yet.. I don't know how long he has been diving the unit, since I haven't heard his name come up.. There are not many RB divers in this neck of the wood so names get around pretty quick..

Most of the reports I have seen all point to diver error, and most are do to divers exceding their training. I don't care if a diver has 1000 dives to 300 feet, without additional training and experience they are not ready for a 150ft dive...

The highest risk group is those with 15-50 hours especially if they have been problem free.. I have seen many get complacent and start to skip steps or not carry the proper bailout... I have at least 300 hours on the unit now and I have only had a few minor problems and none was serious enough to bail out, one dive I cut short and that was it, the others ended normally.. I still practice bailout drills and do full predive checks..

The best thing that can happen to a RB diver is to have a problem early in his experience (but not too serious) so The diver realizes not to push things to fast..

I'm betting on a heart attack, I was diving this weekend and the heat was unbearable especially in a drysuit.. I haven't been to the quarry it happened (I was in another quarry this weekend) but a drysuit is probably mandatory. I was running an inspiration class, and had to limit saturday to 2 dives and sunday to 1 due to the heat. I was training an older diver and didn't want to put too much stress on him.. I know I felt like I was going to die..

I have seen reports on 11 confirmed deaths prior to this one, I have heard there were 14.. a few were heart attacks,

one was a ruptured lung due to a runaway ascent (prior to dive diver complained of sticky drysuit inflator, he poped to surface, his argon bottle was empty), one idiot dropped something overboard and decided to jump back of the boart and get it, except he forgot to turn his gas on.. another diver decided to do a dive despites cell warning on the boat from the unit with a do not dive warning which he got around.. it turned out he had 1 totally bad cell, and 1 cell that was current limited so it couldn't produce a reading of 1.3, he otoxed.. There was also an instructor death late last year, he had some type of buoyancy problem and blew off over 60minutes of deco(it was a 300 foot dive), he had heart attack like symptoms so chamber treatment was delayed over 6 hours, he did in the chamber..

These are a few off the top of my head, surely the unit can't be blamed for any of the above, even the one that the eqpt wasn't working because it told the diver something was wrong but he though he knew better.

 

[Ladydiver]

Padiscubapro,

I would recommend you read the thread I posted above. One of the divers that was with the deceased that day has posted in that thread.

 

[madmole]

Try my site I'm building at http://www.btinternet.com/~madmole/divemole.htm
Here in the "Youll die" facts section I've tried to put together the facts and not the fiction and am collecting all the reports available

In this latest case (as like many others) the diver was diving solo so we will probably never find out the true cause (He was apparantly a "Solo Instructor", if you've ever heard anything so stupid)

I will be adding the details from this latest tradgedy asap.

As usual Geourge Irvine has been spouting already. The only thing that that guy has got 18000' up is his own arse

 

[Rick Murchison]

Grajan once bubbled...
The sport diving industry has, at best, paid lip service to this systematic approach to safety and conseqently has an accident rate that would simply not be tolerated in the industry.

That statement, sir, is pure unadulterated BS.
The "sport diving industry" has one of the lowest accident rates of any sporting activity... lower than bowling, for example. Whether the methods used fit neatly into your "systematic approach" or not is irrelevant - the real rate (near zero) speaks for itself. Your contention that there needs to be some regulatory oversight to improve it is a total red herring.
There is always room for improvement - and those of us in the industry are always striving to improve our methods and decrease the accident rate further - but the only way to achieve a zero injury rate for an activity is to have no one doing it.
Rick

 

[Rick Murchison]

Grajan once bubbled...
I do not have the figures but general aviation would make an interesting comparison to sport diving. It is another activity that is practiced privately and is posibly more unforgiving of errors. The difference is that training standards, equipment standards, procedures, etc. are all federally regulated (and yes it is STILL fun).

I wonder what the fatality rate per hour of air time would be compared to the rate per hour of dive time????

Yes, let's do compare GA and Scuba - excellent. Statistics are hard to come by for Scuba, being out from under the thumb of the Feds so much, but we can make a fair guess. Estimates put the annual number of fatalities from Scuba diving in the United States at somewhere between 2 and 8 per 100,000 active divers. Pretty broad range, but let's assume the very top rate is accurate. The fatality rate for GA is very precise - after all it's tightly regulated - and for 2001 it was 6.56 per 100,000 flight hours. Now, the question becomes "how many hours did the divers dive?" If the average diver dove one hour in the year, then the number of diving fatalities might be as high as 8 per 100,000 diving hours, and marginally higher than GA... but if the average diver dove as little as 1.3 hours, then even at its highest estimate Scuba becomes safer than GA. With a more realistic average of 5 hours or so, then the Scuba rate becomes somewhere between .4 and 1.6 fatalities per 100,000 diving hours - considerably safer than GA.
And, oh, by the way, GA isn't anywhere near as much fun as it used to be when I started teaching flying back in '67.
Rick
Certified Flight Instructor
Aviation Safety Officer
NASDS Open Water Instructor
SSI Dive Control Specialist Instructor

 

[Rockhound]

has done as much harm to GA (General Aviation) as it has helped the commercial aviation industry. Certainly, flying paying passengers on large commercial aircraft warrants some governmental control, but that does not justify the onerous and unweildy regulation of private aviation by the FAA.

That heavy handed control has stifled, if not destroyed GA. Todays aircraft designs are nearly 50 years old. FADEC controls, composites, glass cockpit design, diesel engines and a plethora of other aircraft amenable tools have been around for years and years in automobiles, but were not available to certified aircraft owners. Only just now are a few entrepeneurs making headway with the FAA . Thankfully, these guys were willing to pour MILLIONS of dollars into the technologies, mainly to secure approval from regulators, many of whom do not even fly.

A Cessna 172, basically a 40 yr. old design, now costs around $200,000 dollars. Most of that cost has been attributed to "lawyers" and "corporate liability issues', but it can also be related to the fact that the manufacturer can't "improve" this aircraft by using more cost efficient (and probably safer) parts and design.

On the other hand, Ultralight (FAR 103) aviation is largely unregulated, but the accident record is surprisingly low. Not quite as low as GA, but then again these aircraft have a much more limited operating envelope. I've flow a few UL's and find the freedom from bureaucracy to be invigorating and the ease of flight and the feeling of safety, reassuring.

Experimental aircraft, which are owner built and maintained have a safety record equal to that of GA, once the individual aircraft and the pilot/builder have flown off a few hours (as opposed to GA which must have "federally approved" technicians service and inspect them). Some of these "homebuilts" fly at speeds over 400mph, others can land or takeoff from a high school football field. Try finding an affordable certified aircraft that can do that!

I worked for an offshore drilling company for over ten years. I still work in offshore exploration. I am aware of the great progress made in safety by the oil companies, particularly in the last 20 years. Some of that is attributable federal oversight, some from lessons learned the hard way (I worked for ODECO, when they lost the Ocean Ranger and 83 souls off Nova Scotia). Certainly, when the systems get very large and very dangerous, safety must be drilled into not only the psyche of the employees, but the culture of the corporation (systemic).

My dad retired as a safety officer for the federal government (OSHA/Dept. of the Army) . He taught me a lot about safety as a "way of life". Yet, he also recognized that using federal regulation as a way to reduce risk had inherent flaws. There were times and examples of when federal "rules" kept better, safer, methods from being employed.

And, as for diving?

The safety record of privately regulated Sport Diving in this country has improved much over what it was when I learned to dive over 25 yrs. ago. Much of that is due to improvement in equipment and methods. (redundancy, floatation, etc.). All of it was done without onerous governmental intervention.

Obviously, Tech (overhead, CCR, SCR) diving is another animal. Divers who participate in this aspect of the sport should understand the risks involved (I have witnessed the aftermath of a CCR accident). But, they should also enjoy the freedom to decide on their own and to practice this facet of the sport. It is the right of any individual to make a reasoned, informed decision whether or not they wish to incur risk in any endevour. The only caveat would be that they only risk themselves, not others (noncommercial ventures only and only in areas where others at not put at risk).

In exchange for this riskier behavior practiced by a few, future divers will enjoy the SAFER technological advancements that come as a result.

Once Big Brother starts telling us what to do, diving becomes less of a sport and more of an excercise in conforming to some faceless bureaucracy.