Twelve divers missing in Red Sea

[Allison Finch]

Thankfully not a repeat of the shoddy seamanship displayed in Belize.......glad to hear they made it

PLEASE!! Do not equate this with what happened in Belize. It is unfair to taint All boats with that tragic occurance if they ever had any (or imagined) connection with Peter Hughes. Peter Hughes runs a good operation worldwide and one captain's poor judgement should not paint all the other, excellent, captains with the same brush.
The reference to Peter Hughes in the first post did not imply that this organization still had any connection with the Oyster. They don't.

 

[grahamsp]

I cannot understand why not one of the divers was equipped with an EPIRB. Call me risk averse but, with a first generation 121.5/243 MHz EPIRB available here in Australia for less than AUD240 (say USD 170), it seems a no-brainer to buy one when diving on what are essentially blue-water sites with strong, often unpredictable currents.

Or did they have them and they didn't work? Now that would be a real worry.

 

[ScubaNorth]

When diving makes the news are there any not shark infested waters.
infested
adj : (often followed by `with' or used in combination) troubled
by or encroached upon in large numbers.
Who is enchraoching on who, the sharks live there we just visit. Guess it just sounds better.

 

[vjongene]

I found this on diverforum, a British diving board. The message is from Antonio Vidigal in Portugal. He has taken the time to translate a message posted in German on taucher.net. The original report is here . The report was written by Willi Hoffmann of Deep Blue Cruises, the operator of the MY Thunderbird. The original report also contains some highly critical remarks that were left untranslated. Since the Oyster and the Thunderbird belong to competing operators this is not totally unexpected. If someone is interested I'll try my hand at it...


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I have translated this bit from Taucher.net where the owners of the MY Thunderbird who has rescued the 12 divers report their view of the event:

“… Sunday morning the 11 MY Oyster guests, and their guide, were taken by the Zodiacs to the northern point of the Little Brother, immediately followed by the group from the MY Thunderbird. There was strong wind and high waves. According to our guide Hubi from the MY Thunderbird he immediately become aware of the strong current and so decided to take his group to the ridge in order to ensure that the divers would be protected from the current.

The group from the MY Oyster went away from the ridge and has dived in blue water. Having left the divers, the Zodiacs from the MY Oyster returned to the ship.

The Zodiacs from the MT Thunderbird followed their gests on the surface, which is for us the usual procedure, to prevent any problem. Also it can also ensure that the divers upon a change in the current which here often happens can be taken safely to the ship. The dive area has to be always kept under watch by the ship. Those who have already dived at the Brothers know what I mean.

The group from the MY Thunderbird, following a pleasant dive went relaxed back on board, always under escort from the Zodiacs.

When the divers from the MY Oyster became overdue, other ships as well as the competent authorities were warned via radio and satellite telephone. The Dune Diving Center from Safaga has to be thanked for the important contribution they have given to the rescue by the use of their satellite phone.

The summoned helicopter found the gests hours later, in the eastern direction, drifting in rough see 50 Km off the brothers and gave the position to the ships at the Brothers.

The MY Thunderbird went immediately to the given position, however could not find an yone. Capitan Afifi kept however searching the area! He has worked 18 years for our company and those who have already sailed with him know that he his very good hat understanding the weather and the currents. In spite of the falling dusk he kept the search going on the direction he guessed taking into consideration wind, current and waves. Following several hours of search were lights spotted on the sea and the group was safely rescued although a little cold, thirsty and hungry. They were circa 40km away from the brother.

The happy recovery was announced over radio and a rendezvous at high sea with the MY Oyster was agreed making it possible for the gests to be taken to their ship still on Sunday…”

 

[Rick Murchison]

George Saleed, from the Oyster Club, said protocol had been followed to the strictest letter.

The protocol, then, must change.
Rick

 

[String]

The Oyster distributes SMBs without line to all divers on board, and the instructions are to inflate them at the surface if the chase boat is not right there. Many other dive boats don't even have them.

Bordering on criminal if you ask me. Delayed SMBs without line ?! Whats the point in that ?

If you start drifting you want the DSMB sent up immediately from depth so the boat can immediately follow you. Simply waving the thing after you've surfaced where you may already have drifted a few miles is a total and utter waste of time.

Instructions on how to inflate an SMB ? Hardly rocket science is it. Why dont they give instructions on how to send one up from depth with the aid of a reel ?

Im of the opinion delayed SMB deployment should be taught as the first-stage diving qualification for a new diver. Its a vital safety aid.

Most clubs here wont let anyone on their boat without carrying a DSMB and knowing how to use it whether theyre certified or a first sea dive beginner. There are very good reasons for it.

Right, rant over.

 

[lecas]

Divernet...

"Believe me this is the very much shortened version of events.
Experience of Divers: Ranged from PADI advanced to instructor level or equivalent. 130-600+ dives. 4 of the divers had visited the Brothers on between previous occasions in various conditions.
Equipment: Compulsory DSMB or ‘Sausage’ per buddy team – 8 in total, 3 torches
Conditions: South East current running at about 2.5-3 knots. 15 metres underwater visibility. 1 metre sea swell, maybe reaching 1.5 metres at times.
Strong Northerly to North North east wind force 4 to 5, i.e. blowing from the north to the south. Clear sunny day.
Dive brief/Plan:
Divers to keep reef in sight at all times, and if divers wished to look for pelagics during the early part of the dive then swim a little away from the reef.
Divers to be aware that the reef at the southern end of Little Brother did not run parallel with the current.
On reaching the South end follow the reef around the corner and end the dive exploring the south/south west side of the island.
Maximum dive time was 60 minutes.
What actually happened:
At about 7:10am 2 ribs took 13 people to the entry point. I was in the 2nd rib where one person got a nose bleed. Once we got to the entry point the dive guide was on the surface waiting for the 2nd rib and the 6 divers from the 1st rib had descended. The person with the nose bleed elected not to dive. The 2nd rib remained above the divers while the 1st rib returned to the boat to pick up a 3rd group of 9 divers. Once the 1st rib returned with the 3rd group of divers the 2nd rib, with the person who had the nose bleed, then returned to the boat to drop them off. Once the nose bleed victim had been returned to the boat the 2nd rib went back out to sea to supervise the South end of the island.
Once in the water we had visual contact with the reef.
We all proceeded to drift with the current for a few minutes before one of the group rapped on their tank and pointed out into the blue. Everyone’s attention was drawn out into the blue in an attempt to see what was being pointed at.
This diverted everyone’s attention for a critical 2-3 minutes. It was during this period that we lost contact with the reef. I checked the wave action/current & sun position to try and get an idea of the correct position of the reef and I started to ascend to the surface from 25 metres in the general direction I thought the reef was in to get a visual bearing. This was after 15 minutes of dive time. By the time I reached the surface the dive guide had already taken a visual look, deployed a DSMB and had descended to do a safety stop.
I reached the surface after 17 minutes of dive time to see we were 200-300 metres south east of Little Brother and our boat. I then descended to do a safety stop and to get our group of 4 into a closer proximity to the dive guide and for them to start a safety stop. By the time all 12 divers were gathered together and on the surface 30 minutes had passed since the start of the dive. We were now 600-1000 metres south of Little Brother and the dive boat.
Between 3pm & 4:30pm we spotted 2 dive boats heading south about 2-3 km to our east. This gave us confirmation that other boats were out searching and therefore there was some kind of co-ordinated rescue effort.
Next a search plane turned and headed straight towards us heading straight for us for several minutes. Later reports did state that the plane had spotted divers in the water, but this should not be linked with this plane going over the top of us. The co-ordinates where the plane thought they had seen people was North West of the Brothers. We we south al all times!
I also see from a write up provided by MV Thunderbird that they were given coordinates from a helicopter who reportedly sighted us. At no time did we see a helicopter so, whatever the helicopter did spot, it was not us.
Around 7:30pm the lights of 2 distant boats could be seen on the horizon heading towards the South.
We signalled the two boats with torches at either end of the line of 12 divers. It took over 60 minutes for the boats to reach us. They must have been 12-15km away when they first spotted us.
We have requested that if anyone knows our exact location from MV Thunderbird’s GPS we would really appreciate being told what it was. I for one want to put a couple of pins into a map on the wall.
We would all like to express our deep gratitude to those who took part in the search, both seen and unseen, on land and sea. A huge effort was made by all those involved and their efforts are extremely appreciated by us all. We owe them our lives.
The post incident investigation was taken extremely seriously by the Red Sea Association and the Governor of the Red Sea who personally chaired the review. It was clear that the search & subsequent rescue mission was given the highest priority within the Egyptian authorities.
We would like to thank the crew & guests of the Thunderbird, Royal Emperor and the Blue Pearl who we understand where the 3 boats that arrived together to pick us up. Apologies if we have got this slightly wrong but in all the excitement we are not 100% sure on our facts on the other two boats in attendance. Please let us now if we have made an error here.
We would also like to sincerely thank the crew and dive guides of the Oyster. We believe the incident was caused by a number of combined factors, not all detailed here, and every member of the Oyster crew made every effort to ensure that they carried out their duty of care to the full, both before and after the incident.
We hope that our insistence that we should continue diving from the Oyster demonstrated our faith and trust in both the crew and dive guides’ competence. We hope this action alone speaks louder than any words to all those involved with The Oyster.

"

 

[Epinephelus]

When current is an issue...
(1) If the boat's tied into the site, we shoot a bag immediately if blown off the site
(2) When "live" boating on a fixed site, we use a downline (with a float on the surface) to the site. Depending on the circumstances we may come up the downline with it remaining on the site (light current) or lift the weight or grapple clear of the site ("foul the anchor") and allow the downline to drift as we come up it. If the downline is lost we shoot a bag immediately.
(3) When drift diving we use a line to a SMB to drift with us. Bubbles are just not reliable enough where we dive.
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In Cozumel the SMB is rarely used, but there the surface is rarely churned up to the point where bubbles are hard to follow.
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I've never used a "Jersey line" but that seems a viable method up where they do use them - don't want to be drifting into major shipping lanes etc.
E

 

[Charlie99]

From Divernet........I reached the surface after 17 minutes of dive time to see we were 200-300 metres south east of Little Brother and our boat.

Only 200-300 meters away, but at 17 minutes into a scheduled 60 minute dive, the boat crew might not have been looking, or were looking the wrong direction.

This is the sort of situation where an audible signal, such as whistle or preferably an inflator air power device such as Dive Alert might have been of help.

 

[String]

Still seems the basic problem is no matter how experienced they are supposed to be they didnt deploy a DSMB immediately when not on the reef or started drifting. Thats standard practice in a lot of places and part of the things that get drummed into novices. If you move off the wreck/reef send a bag up immediately,if it starts to run, bag up immediately.