Legal considerations for the Fire on dive boat Conception in CA

[Ayisha]

Agreed. The above statement from TA also makes it sound like they're "new regulations", maybe even non-existent at the time of the incident.

 

[Roz]

I think you will not find any liveaboard that meets your needs, then. I’ve been on 25, usually as captain or engineer, and I have never seen escape trunks that open to more than one space, because usually the space they open to is the salon.

So the most recent liveaboard I have been on was MV Valhalla. (June 2019). This has two escape routes from the sleeping accommodation. One is from a two berth cabin and is a fixed ladder. You walk into the cabin and start climbing the ladder. Push open the hatch and you land on the diving deck. The main entrance / egress is via a staircase at the other end of the sleeping accommodation and it brings you up into a covered area where divers don and doff suits.

Another Brit liveboard I can think of was George Mair's last boat. I think it was called Gemini Storm II. This was a converted lifeboat. The main entrance / egress was via a ladder into the saloon. There was a second emergency exit in the shower room. You popped the hatch in the ceiling and climbed out onto the bow deck. All the cabins could access both routes, assuming no obstruction.

A number of Loyal Class fleet tenders have been converted into Brit liveboards, so these will have two exits that exit into different ares on the ship.

I also dived off MV Salutay. This has steps up from some of the sleeping accommodation into the main salon, and then there was an emergency hatch in one of the cabins that you lifted and this also exited into the main saloon.

 

[danddmiller1]

Who was on the crew

 

[StefinSB]

Who was on the crew

I would assume that for a dive professional like you, living in Santa Barbara, it would be easy to figure that out using your local contacts.

 

[Bob DBF]

Agreed. The above statement from TA also makes it sound like they're "new regulations", maybe even non-existent at the time of the incident.

May be non-existent as we speak. I doubt that a new set of regulations would be made before they have had a chance to possibly determine what happened on the Conception. The warning bulletin the USCG sent may be followed by more, however changing regulations takes longer, and will be better written to avoid a similar accident when, and if, a cause can be found.


Bob

 

[danddmiller1]

You would have all the surviving crew silent "on advice of counsel"

Not me I would want to tell my story. Get it out.

 

[danddmiller1]

I wonder how that would look in practice. How far do you go at theoretical risk mitigation, running up costs and design compromise for other functions in the regulatory process, before it's enough? There will always be safety issues...what's good enough?

Not easy questions in the wake of these deaths.

Apologies if I missed it; the number of posts in threads on the Conception incident grows fast. Is there presently a dive boat, or one with a similar function, that is very similar to the Conception in size and practical usage, yet has these theoretical advances that would 'make everyone happy,' so to speak?

Any thoughts on what it costs have have a boat like the Conception built, and how much extra cost this might add?

I keep thinking of a boat designer in a room with @Wookie , Coast Guard inspectors, some relevant material science/engineer types and so on, and the designer throws up a proposed schematic and asks 'What could go seriously wrong here?' Every time someone raises an issue, they 'fix' it with a design change.

Where do they stop? What does this boat look like? Can industry service providers afford this boat?

I ask because whatever changes we expect to see going forward have to be practically implementable.

Richard.

In this design. A water tight, walk through hatch into the stern engine room would have given the passengers a separate escape. Escaping to the stern.
A much better alarm system. Not a Home Depot 9 bolt alarm.

 

[KevinNM]

In this design. A water tight, walk through hatch into the stern engine room would have given the passengers a separate escape. Escaping to the stern.
A much better alarm system. Not a Home Depot 9 bolt alarm.

Apparently the USCG will not approve that sort of approach per Wookie.

The alarm is certainly an issue. Bridge monitored smoke and heat alarms were not required, but they were not prohibited.

But I owned a boat I’d be hesitant to start making any changes until i could read the regs in the federal register. And i certainly wouldn’t order a new vessel until I determined if it could be operated safely and profitably under the new regs.

 

[IDNeon357]

The emergency hatch was leading to the same room as the stairs. Somebody posted some regulation in the main thread which stated - if I remember well - that the emergency exit should lead so other space than the main one and those two should be far away. Wouldn't be the structure of this ship in direct contradiction with regs then? If so there would be a lawsuit with the government certifying the boat every year? Just thoughts of a person NOT in the know in this area.

It's a boat, not a luxury liner. Limited space, limited options for solutions. For instance, where will the anchor chain be stowed? And in case of emergency should passengers be competent enough to crawl into a hatch in the anchor chain stowage and then out a hatch on top of that?

I wanted to weigh in on this as a former firefighter.

When I heard about this and that everyone below decks died, my first thoughts were thus:

1) The only exits must have been sufficiently blocked.

2) There must have been an accelerant.

Logic led to finding a boat-layout and proved #1. The bunk rooms were divided down the middle and had one stair that led to the galley, an easy blockage if the galley were where the fire began.

#2 has been harder to prove, as no one is saying anything.

But I'm sorry, the idea that an electrical fire of any kind, or a phone/battery charging would cause a fire to kill everyone, without an accelerant, is absurd. I just can't believe it.

The hatch-escape was probably not used.

Let's face it, and I'll admit, I'm one of those guys who never listened to the helicopter crash briefing, until I was actually in a helicopter crash.

No one listens to those things and even if they do, the chances of getting through special circumstances in an emergency are slim.

I call into question whatever that early report I head was...that it was a a charging station. Almost all your batteries have little more than a fraction of calories in them. If you work on high voltage switches you should know that a relatively safe caloric limit of 5 results in little PPE required and probably no harm should you have an Arc-flash event.

So a phone battery, or camera battery going off, is doubtfully going to turn into a raging inferno.

There must have been an accelerant.

Shorting wires are the same issue. When a wire shorts it is very likely to burn itself out and trip a breaker, so any fire it starts will be relatively confined long enough for SOMEONE to wake-up and get the hell out...

That leaves me thinking it's a galley fire with some kind of accelerant...

So if any one has any idea what the acclerant would be, I'm truly curious.

 

[IDNeon357]

In this design. A water tight, walk through hatch into the stern engine room would have given the passengers a separate escape. Escaping to the stern.
A much better alarm system. Not a Home Depot 9 bolt alarm.

Unless the fire began in that area.

And again, you have to consider that people who do no training would retain, and faithfully execute a plan.

I asked a Hercules heavy-lift crew once, "How often do you train escaping through your plywood hatch?"

The task to escape was to cut through the plywood with an axe.

None of them were able to execute the task in a test scenario, none had actually trained, and none knew what it required to actually break through a plywood "wall" with a what amounted to flat-bladed hatchet.

It was insufficient tool for undertrained crew. Now vacationers are expected to remember and navigate escape routes?

Unreasonable without practice.

It's really a shame that anyone even suggests that it's possible.

Most people die in fires 10 feet from an exit, that's a fact. When S- hits the fan....common sense becomes difficult. Anything out of routine becomes very difficult.