Two German divers drown at Gran Cenote Kalimba at Tulum

[FreeFlyFreak]

@Izze
1) It is unclear to me where the light and cookies were found on the floor, was this near Jump 1?

2) Do you think this drop location was where they realized they were in serious trouble and made the second turn away from the stages?

3) Was the dropped light functional?

4) Was the video camera functional when found or was the battery dead?

Just trying to wrap my head around the info presented.
Im no cave diver but I like to learn from all situations.

 

[Izze]

@Izze
1) It is unclear to me where the light and cookies were found on the floor, was this near Jump 1?

2) Do you think this drop location was where they realized they were in serious trouble and made the second turn away from the stages?

3) Was the dropped light functional?

4) Was the video camera functional when found or was the battery dead?

Just trying to wrap my head around the info presented.
Im no cave diver but I like to learn from all situations.

1: It was several minutes farther towards Ho Tul, beyond the Lithium Sunset jump, and the cookies and the light were not found together. They must have been dropped after deciding on the Gran Cenote/Ho Tul exit.

2: No, it is more likely that it happened during gas sharing.

3: Functional but out of battery when we came upon it during the search.

4: It was functional. Battery status unknown, I do not remember if we used a fresh battery to download the videos or not.

 

[catone]

I have no knowledge of the cave system. It is often said that in Mexico the arrows are always pointing to the closest exit, which may not be the one where you started your dive. At the J1 point, which direction do the arrows point? Calimba or the other way?

And another question: It doesn't look like they dropped off the empty tanks, were they weighed appropriately for swimming with emptying AL80s? They get pretty positive when empty, must be a pain to try to swim them both down, particularly in low silty passages (which I don't know if it was the case, not familiar with the cave)

 

[kafkaland]

I have no knowledge of the cave system. It is often said that in Mexico the arrows are always pointing to the closest exit, which may not be the one where you started your dive. At the J1 point, which direction do the arrows point? Calimba or the other way?

The arrow at J1 points to Grand Cenote.

 

[rjack321]

I have no knowledge of the cave system. It is often said that in Mexico the arrows are always pointing to the closest exit, which may not be the one where you started your dive. At the J1 point, which direction do the arrows point? Calimba or the other way?

And another question: It doesn't look like they dropped off the empty tanks, were they weighed appropriately for swimming with emptying AL80s? They get pretty positive when empty, must be a pain to try to swim them both down, particularly in low silty passages (which I don't know if it was the case, not familiar with the cave)

"Closest" in terms of time, probably
Closest in terms of feet or meters, not always

J1 arrows point downstream towards Ho Tul and Grand. In part because its large enough for anyone to exit that way. The exit to Calimba has many restrictions.

The passage from J1 to Ho Tul is large and wide open. There's very little silt until after the jump from the Paso line to the Grand/Ho Tul line.

 

[FreeFlyFreak]

The exit to Calimba has many restrictions.

The passage from J1 to Ho Tul is large and wide open.

1) In the report you say they were using "intermediate length hoses" what length were they?

2) Would it even be possible to pass the restrictions from Jump 1 to their stages if forced to share air on that length hose?

3) What if they were using long hoses?

I have just been running through their decision process in my mind.
Obviously they thought they had more chance of making it out by traveling a further distance downstream in a wide tunnel vs upstream through the restrictions if forced to share air.

It appears from my uneducated opinion that there was the oft found error chain.

Stage left too far out, possibly due to slow travel due to video.
Poor gas planning, either through lack of conservatism or video distraction.
Possibly painting themselves into a forced decision on direction because of no long hose to share through restrictions?

Anything I am missing?

Still curious why they were found apart if the evidence points to them perishing at the same time.

 

[Hiszpan]

1) In the report you say they were using "intermediate length hoses" what length were they?

2) Would it even be possible to pass the restrictions from Jump 1 to their stages if forced to share air on that length hose?

3) What if they were using long hoses?

I have just been running through their decision process in my mind.
Obviously they thought they had more chance of making it out by traveling a further distance downstream in a wide tunnel vs upstream through the restrictions if forced to share air.

It appears from my uneducated opinion that there was the oft found error chain.

Stage left too far out, possibly due to slow travel due to video.
Poor gas planning, either through lack of conservatism or video distraction.
Possibly painting themselves into a forced decision on direction because of no long hose to share through restrictions?

Anything I am missing?

Still curious why they were found apart if the evidence points to them perishing at the same time.

I am wondering myself about those, and my conclusion would be:

1. Diving and filming on the way in would actually be to their advantage, as they wouldn't go that far Into the cave on thirds as they were filming and posing, which slowed them down.
2. They probably turned on thirds, as otherwise, they would most likely head to Ho-Tul if they realised that they went past thirds on the turn, as an emergency exit.
3. Going against the flow and filming inside Much's Maze while returning was what really messed up their plan in terms of gas use on the way back.
4. When they checked air at the jump 1 (which is what I was taught to do) and realised low gas they made decision to go back to Ho-Tul. Why this decision? I think it was because of leaving too little gas in their stages. I think this was crucial in their decision making and subconsciously told them to go other way as its wider and with the flow. If I knew i used my stage almost to 50% of it's capacity while swimming in at normal,relaxed pace, and now im in distress, low on air and might be in extreme case sharing my stage through those restrictions, I wouldn't think of this option as an assett. Even if they left them further into the cave, with that little air left in them, it wouldn't give them a cozy feeling about that way back.
Depth didn't work to their advantage in the Ho-Tul direction compared to Calimba exit - not much of a difference but those few metres shallower could mean you survive.

I'm just a beginning cave diver and my observations might be totally wrong, but on my last cave dive we used a stage to 125 BAR, left it deeper into the cave than when we reached that pressure and switched to back gas. We also had emergency exit planned (this cave has 2 entrances)that we could reach with total stage failure and a failure of one of the back gas at the farthest dive point (albeit it would be tight). I also tend to get out of the cave quicker than I get in,as I'm still a beginner.

Reading Bobby's other thread about stage tactics reinforced my thinking.

 

[John the Pom]

Here is the report. I'll be around a bit to answer questions if they pop up. I do not normally frequent scubaboard much so if you do not get a reply quote me in the thread or send a pm so I get a notification.

Thank you for an excellent report. You have done a very good job collecting and presenting this information.

The thing that jumps out at me is in the section "Dive route:" where it says "...alternating between the role of cameraman and subject so that each diver had both roles..." I can see how this could easily lead to one or both divers becoming overloaded and distracted.

The other thing, if I understand the incident correctly, is that, when they turned the dive, should they have realised at that point they were already in trouble? They seem to have had a couple of safe options to head for an exit at that point, but tragically they tried to return along to the original route, then by the time they realised their situation and headed for an alternate exit it was already too late.

 

[rjack321]

The other thing, if I understand the incident correctly, is that, when they turned the dive, should they have realised at that point they were already in trouble? They seem to have had a couple of safe options to head for an exit at that point, but tragically they tried to return along to the original route, then by the time they realised their situation and headed for an alternate exit it was already too late.

This is correct they were supposedly 5-10mins from Ho Tul when they turned. Then wasted gas going the wrong way on the Paso line.
Which is why I said earlier one of two things happened at the turn, mostly likely they thought they were much closer to the stages than they were. Or turned on time and had never checked gas

 

[1atm]

This is correct they were supposedly 5-10mins from Ho Tul when they turned. Then wasted gas going the wrong way on the Paso line.
Which is why I said earlier one of two things happened at the turn, mostly likely they thought they were much closer to the stages than they were. Or turned on time and had never checked gas

There’s one more - highly speculative - option: one of the divers turned on thirds, the other didnt check and was already beyond thirds. It might happen if say diver A usually has better consumption than diver B, so A gets into the habit of waiting for B to turn, assuming that A himself will have more gas. If for whatever reason on the day, A uses more than B (or started with less), by the time B turns, A will have gone beyond thirds. If B was a tiny bit late to turn (psychology of always being the first to turn), then both went beyond thirds ...