Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on September 02, 2019, 09:59:48 AM
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The information out so far has been wildly inaccurate, but it appears a recreational dive boat (not "commercial dive ship") caught fire around 0330 this morning off Santa Cruz Island in CA. I haven't seen the name yet, but I dove off many of them in the area. The crew members got out, but it appears most passengers didn't.
Likely scenario: Multi-day, multi-island dive trip (very popular over Labor Day weekend). Boat moved from one dive site to another while passengers slept below decks, so that when the sun came out, they'd be at a new dive site to start their day. The passengers were likely trapped below by the fire. I can't remember the escape hatch layout down below on those boats (many of them repurposed oil field crew boats), but as with commercial airlines, passengers usually blow off the safety briefing. Also it would have been dark if not pitch black down below, with power likely out.
Had the fire broken out just a few hours later, at least half the passengers would have been walking around in wetsuits and could have jumped overboard and swam to shore (the boats always anchor in calm areas, usually quite close to shore). Trapped by fire is a bad way to go.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/people-killed-boat-fire-california-santa-cruz-island
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Good reminder not to blow off safety briefings and that not all the dangers around diving occur under water.
Just horrifying.
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They just identified the vessel as the Truth Aquatics Conception. I've been on it many a time, but not for any overnights. They used to take families out as well for non-diving nature tours of the islands. A few of us from the office would rotate through those once in a while as science divers to bring up critters to put in a touch tank for the kids.
It's a very well run outfit, so it will be sadly interesting to see what caused this.
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Does PADI* get the blame for these tragic deaths?
*Corrected for double tap as noted below.
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^ "Professional Association of Diving Instructors | PADI" ???
Must have been a pretty big boat to hold >30 folks and their gear and overnight accessories.... ???
(ETA 75 feet, about the size of a PT boat. Sardine-like berthing, I guess.)
A fire that big (and fast, I guess) over the whole vessel smacks of a fuel-related incident to me. Wow.
According to hurried reports, one crew member was not aboard at the time.
Way-out thought: Could the firefighting have been the cause of the sinking?
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A fire that big (and fast, I guess) over the whole vessel smacks of a fuel-related incident to me. Wow.
Could have been an engine room fire. Could have been a galley fire as well. IIRC, all three of their boats have the berthing egress go through the galley, so a galley fire could have simply blocked egress. From preliminary reports, it's looking like the initial bodies recovered died from drowning rather than burning. I would expect there might be some smoke inhalation deaths as well.
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Well, this doesn't look great. It's USA Today, and a radio conversation where we only hear one side, so there could be missing or misunderstood information, but, yikes:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/02/santa-cruz-island-dive-boat-conception-disaster-transcript/2194064001/
I'm thinking "locked" is simply inaccurate language. I don't recall there even being a hatch to the berthing gangway, just hatches to the galley and mess areas from the weather deck. Unless some crewmember panicked and closed the hatches hoping to contain the fire?
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Interesting story on this on NPR on the drive in this morning. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/756976612/dozens-of-victims-feared-dead-after-diving-boat-catches-fire-in-california Apparently, all of the survivors are crew members.
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Could have been an engine room fire. Could have been a galley fire as well. IIRC, all three of their boats have the berthing egress go through the galley, so a galley fire could have simply blocked egress. From preliminary reports, it's looking like the initial bodies recovered died from drowning rather than burning. I would expect there might be some smoke inhalation deaths as well.
I thought the boat burned to the water line, but didn't sink. How did drowning deaths occur? I am missing something there.
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I thought the boat burned to the water line, but didn't sink. How did drowning deaths occur? I am missing something there.
It sank in ~60' of water. Also damage could have easily flooded berthing, which is at the lowest point of the hull.
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It sank in ~60' of water. Also damage could have easily flooded berthing, which is at the lowest point of the hull.
It was a fiberglass hull, and fiberglass resin burns quite nicely, IIRC. News photos taken before the sinking sowed the hull gone right down to the waterline in approximately the area of the berthing compartment. It looked like someone had cut a window through the side of the hull.
(https://www.maritime-executive.com/media/images/article/Photos/Wreckage_Salvage/fire-dive-boat-2.jpg)
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I thought the boat burned to the water line, but didn't sink. How did drowning deaths occur? I am missing something there.
From some local news, but not confirmed forensics, they are saying, drowning, burning, and body separations possibly from explosions. Looks like there's still a lot of investigation to go regarding types of death.
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I thought the boat burned to the water line, but didn't sink. How did drowning deaths occur? I am missing something there.
That's why I was asking about firefighting efforts causing the sinking (and, by implication, drowning.) There was an example of a full sized ship at berth turning over and sinking because of all the water pumped in to fight the on-board fire.
But body separations and explosions? I hadn't heard that before.
Terry, 230RN
REF (Sinking of the Normandie in New York Harbor):
https://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2014/09/the-sinking-of-the-s-s-normandie-at-nycs-pier-88/
Unfortunately, a new problem would be realized. The fire boats attacking the port side blaze pumped water at a far greater volume than was used by the dockside hoses to starboard. The Normandie was listing heavily to Port, submerging a number of open portholes on that side. The Navy attempted to counterflood to right the list, pumping water into the starboard side so that the ship would settle evenly, but this proved fruitless. At a quarter till three, the Lafayette rolled over on her side and settled into the mud of the Hudson River’s bottom.
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But body separations and explosions? I hadn't heard that before. Perhaps, as usual, reporting rate far exceeds the actual fact development rate.
Terry, 230RN
The local sheriff's dept reported that their dive team recovered separated bodies. The people (private boaters) that rescued the crew reported explosions, but USCG hasn't yet confirmed that. I would expect to hear some kind of explosions, if only smaller ones, given there were probably at a minimum, a dozen largish Lithium Ion battery packs for camera strobes, etc. charging overnight in the mess area. I recall there were a couple of corners in the mess with AC plugs that everyone always utilized for charging stuff like that.
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The local sheriff's dept reported that their dive team recovered separated bodies. The people (private boaters) that rescued the crew reported explosions, but USCG hasn't yet confirmed that. I would expect to hear some kind of explosions, if only smaller ones, given there were probably at a minimum, a dozen largish Lithium Ion battery packs for camera strobes, etc. charging overnight in the mess area. I recall there were a couple of corners in the mess with AC plugs that everyone always utilized for charging stuff like that.
Possible source for the fire?
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Quote from: Ben on Today at 06:42:04 AM
The local sheriff's dept reported that their dive team recovered separated bodies. The people (private boaters) that rescued the crew reported explosions, but USCG hasn't yet confirmed that. I would expect to hear some kind of explosions, if only smaller ones, given there were probably at a minimum, a dozen largish Lithium Ion battery packs for camera strobes, etc. charging overnight in the mess area. I recall there were a couple of corners in the mess with AC plugs that everyone always utilized for charging stuff like that.
Possible source for the fire?
Hmm. Good to think about. Ben, do you know where and how big the fuel tank(s) were? Diesel, I assume?
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Possible source for the fire?
I was thinking about that too. I've certainly read lots of examples of them catching fire, but don't know enough about that to know if it would be hot enough or volatile enough to spread the fire as quickly as it apparently spread (maybe a cascade reaction given all the batteries in close proximity?). One would think if the fire started smaller or slower, the fire suppression system would have kicked in. Somehow that didn't happen, and it also started in a way that crew, who were awake, didn't have the time to try and catch it with an extinguisher.
Almost seems like maybe it started with an explosion that kept suppression from kicking in and immediately created a fire too big to fight by hand. They're supposed to have a preliminary report out in ten days. It will be interesting to see what they say.
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^^^Is the galley fired by propane, I wonder.
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^^^Is the galley fired by propane, I wonder.
I can't remember anymore. I'm pretty sure the BBQ (on the weather deck) was propane.
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I just found out that one of the victims (part of the crew) is the great-niece of the secretary for my department at my old job. They haven't recovered her body yet. :'(
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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-05/what-caused-fire-aboard-the-conception
Maybe it was a lithium battery cooking off.
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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-05/what-caused-fire-aboard-the-conception
Maybe it was a lithium battery cooking off.
Nice to see all these smart people thinking like me. >:D
(Or, on the other hand, maybe it was an obvious modern danger.)
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It was probably someone's frayed charging cable.
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It was probably someone's frayed charging cable.
Given where the "charging area" is relative to the galley and egress points, I'm really looking at the batteries as a potential start point. My only issue would be, from lack of knowledge, if a good sized LiIon battery could burst into flame in such a way, or cause a cascade reaction of other batteries near it, to create that large of a fire that quickly.
From what we know so far, at least some of the passengers, as well as the one crewmember that was in berthing, were familiar with the emergency egress points. The fire had to spread quickly enough to choke off both the regular egress, and the emergency egress, which were at opposite ends of berthing. That would be one big and fast fire for not a single person to make it out.
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I wondered about that, too:
^ "Professional Association of Diving Instructors | PADI" ???
Must have been a pretty big boat to hold >30 folks and their gear and overnight accessories.... ???
(ETA 75 feet, about the size of a PT boat. Sardine-like berthing, I guess.)
A fire that big (and fast, I guess) over the whole vessel smacks of a fuel-related incident to me. Wow.
According to hurried reports, one crew member was not aboard at the time.
Way-out thought: Could the firefighting have been the cause of the sinking?
I was thinking engine fuel, but someone else mentioned cooking propane in the galley.
Another aspect of it was apparently they were sleeping. I don't know about you, but when I first wake up, I do not integrate things too well.
I guess we'll have to wait for the official report.
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I wondered about that, too:
I was thinking engine fuel, but someone else mentioned cooking propane in the galley.
I guess we'll have to wait for the official report.
While the diesels are still a strong possibility, the one thing there is the location of the engine room on the boat. While it might have blocked the regular gangway into the galley, it seems like still at least a few people would have made it out the escape hatches, pretty much at the opposite end of the boat as the engine room. A catastrophic fire in the middle of the boat would have a higher probability of immediately blocking all exits. And I repeat, I have no idea at all if LiIon batteries could do that or not.
As you say though, at this point we'll have to wait for the report.
And stupid tangent, now Diane Feinstein is calling for boat control. Seriously. She wants new boat designs and retrofits on older boats so that this can't happen again, even though we don't know what happened.
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And stupid tangent, now Diane Feinstein is calling for boat control. Seriously. She wants new boat designs and retrofits on older boats so that this can't happen again, even though we don't know what happened.
Simple.
"No fires are allowed to occur on watercraft carrying passengers for hire. This act shall take effect upon passage."
Done. Clear, concise, direct to the problem ... and completely unenforceable, just like far too many nanny-state laws.
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Update, of a sort: https://apnews.com/9f2acf97e6ba4ae19ece4b67a6b174d8
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Update, of a sort: https://apnews.com/9f2acf97e6ba4ae19ece4b67a6b174d8
While there might be some liability, like the fact that a watchstander was not making rounds*, I'm not sure the rest of the story isn't a bit sensational. Attorney Gorden Carey who has been Scuba diving for 50 years doesn't really know what he's talking about, or he's perhaps angling to ambulance chase. Saying he has never heard of a dive boat where people sleep below is pretty ridiculous for someone that has supposedly been on a lot of dive boats. It's incredibly common, especially on West Coast boats. In fact I've never been on a dive boat anywhere in CA where berthing wasn't below. Who wants to bunk up top when the swells are 6' and 10 seconds? Yuck.
Don Barthelmess, quoted later, is someone I know personally. He teaches the marine diving tech program at Santa Barbara city college and is nationally known in the diving community and DAN (Diver Alert Network). He always gave our federal dive team our emergency dive medic refreshers and diver specific CRP/O2 training. He's someone I'll pay attention to. He is friends with most everyone at Truth Aquatics, so I will allow he may have some favorable bias for the crew, but the lawyer is way off base.
*I don't know maritime law. Dogmush or dm1333 can weigh in. I know a watchstander is supposed to check the whole boat on smaller vessels, but most of the time they just hang out on the bridge. The crew used to do the same thing on our fed.gov 62' vessel. Whoever was on watch generally just hung out between the bridge and galley, and checked the various cameras for fantail, flying bridge, etc. While they did make rounds, they were never regular rounds, unless there was bad weather or anything other than "dead calm and boring" conditions. I would expect a private vessel to be even more lax.
From my understanding from another article, the watchstander for the conception (at least he was identified as such) said he heard a loud noise, left the bridge to investigate, and saw the fire raging in the galley. So he was likely doing the hanging out on the bridge thing himself.
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I just found out that one of the victims (part of the crew) is the great-niece of the secretary for my department at my old job. They haven't recovered her body yet. :'(
I just found a nice article about the young woman who was the crew member who died.
https://apnews.com/9a3c955f3a3141cda8bb346f3118ccfb
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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-12/all-conception-crew-members-were-sleeping-when-boat-fire-broke-out-ntsb-says (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-12/all-conception-crew-members-were-sleeping-when-boat-fire-broke-out-ntsb-says)
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^^^So I wonder if this raises the possibility of criminal charges for not having someone on watch.
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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-12/all-conception-crew-members-were-sleeping-when-boat-fire-broke-out-ntsb-says (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-12/all-conception-crew-members-were-sleeping-when-boat-fire-broke-out-ntsb-says)
Well, the investigation so far is raising interesting questions.
It's one thing for the watchman to be lounging in the wheelhouse awake. Quite another for everybody to be fast asleep. Depending on the results of this part of the investigation, I can see Truth Aquatics going under in civil suits ( I expect someone to find a loophole in Maritime Law to allow suits).
Why smoke alarms didn't activate (or weren't properly placed) will be another question. In earlier testimony, a crewman said he was awakened by a loud pop, so a smoke alarm certainly should have awakened everyone.
No fire in the engine room, and the USCG emphasizing lithium battery safety. That could be telling.
The final report will be the thing to see, but this preliminary stuff doesn't look great. I was doing some Youtube searches on Lithium battery fires after I started this thread, and while some of them were fizzles, some were rather spectacular. Especially LiPo fires. I'm wondering if someone had Lipo batteries onboard for a drone or scooter or something.
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LiPO and Li-ion fires are usually spectacular, and spectacularly dangerous. Kinda like a magnesium fire - they burn hot, fast, and can be difficult to extinguish. The influx of crappy import Li-ion batteries of questionable construction and even more questionable materials only make the problem worse.
Brad
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Well, the investigation so far is raising interesting questions.
It's one thing for the watchman to be lounging in the wheelhouse awake. Quite another for everybody to be fast asleep. Depending on the results of this part of the investigation, I can see Truth Aquatics going under in civil suits ( I expect someone to find a loophole in Maritime Law to allow suits).
Why smoke alarms didn't activate (or weren't properly placed) will be another question. In earlier testimony, a crewman said he was awakened by a loud pop, so a smoke alarm certainly should have awakened everyone.
No fire in the engine room, and the USCG emphasizing lithium battery safety. That could be telling.
I was just coming here to post something on this, because I saw a blurb on the news while eating dinner.
Not standing an Anchor Watch is a pretty big deal.
The international Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping, Chapter VIII lays out the reasons to have an anchor watch. It does say the Master can, in a sheltered anchorage, forgo a Navigational Watch, but that's very risky, and I don't know anyone that would.
When a ship is at anchor in an open roadstead or any other virtually "at sea" condition, the
engineer officer in charge of the engineering watch shall ensure that:
.1 an efficient engineering watch is kept;
.2 periodic inspection is made of all operating and stand-by machinery;
.3 main and auxiliary machinery is maintained in a state of readiness in accordance with
orders from the bridge;
.4 measures are taken to protect the environment from pollution by the ship, and that
applicable pollution prevention regulations are complied with; and
.5 all damage control and fire-fighting systems are in readiness.
Additionally, for US vessels 33 CFR is quite clear:
Requirements for vessels at anchor.
The master or person in charge of each vessel that is anchored shall ensure that:
(a) A proper anchor watch is maintained;
(b) Procedures are followed to detect a dragging anchor; and
(c) Whenever weather, tide, or current conditions are likely to cause the vessel's anchor to drag, action is taken to ensure the safety of the vessel, structures, and other vessels, such as being ready to veer chain, let go a second anchor, or get underway using the vessel's own propulsion or tug assistance.
Since they had generator's running they probably should have had a generator watch too (one person could do both). Not to mention the requirement to maintain a radio watch on the bridge. I suspect that as the court cases develop phrases like "Gross Negligence" and "clear violation of Laws and Standards" are going to be thrown around pretty convincingly.
On the smoke alarms: some older fire detection systems only ring the alarms in the bridge and engineering spaces, because there's supposed to be someone there at all times. So it may have been that kind of system. I'm not super versed on the specifics for passenger vessels.
This is just another reason that I get real twitchy when on a vessel I am not a watchstander on. They are engineered pretty well ;) but people get lazy and stupid.
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This is just another reason that I get real twitchy when on a vessel I am not a watchstander on. They are engineered pretty well ;) but people get lazy and stupid.
And honestly, a lot of the "crew" (quotes for a reason) on cattle boats like this are simply not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They don't get paid a lot, and I've seen plenty of them in Santa Barbara, when they're not working, living the semi-homeless dock rat life, drinking and toking.
Not to say there aren't good crew - lots of college kids majoring in marine science, or people looking to become dive instructors etc., or people looking to earn their 100 ton or whatever might work as crew and be sharp cookies. But all it takes is the one knucklehead. As I said earlier, I have more than once, when on these boats, especially in calm and safe harbor, seen the crew get pretty lax at night, especially if the captain is in his rack.
This is an older boat, so they may have just done the minimum requirements for fire safety. I can't remember anymore what the fire safety layout was. Also I caught that the boat's previous owner said there were electric sockets in berthing. I never remembered seeing any on the Truth boats, but on the one of them where I did overnights, I pretty much was just in the rack to sleep, so didn't look. If somebody was charging stuff in berthing, I'd be almost certain there would be no surge suppression down there. I don't know how LiIon batteries react to big surges, like from a genset.
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This video gives an idea of the layout of the boat, berthing, and the escape hatch.
https://www.independent.com/2019/09/13/unreleased-conception-safety-video-reveals-tight-quarters-of-bunk-room-escape-hatch/
A couple of points:
The article kind of alludes to the smallness and inaccessibility of the escape hatch. That hatch placement is really no different than the escape hatches of gov boats I have been on. Our 62 footer had a similar hatch over the top bunk in each of the two lower berthing areas. It's politically incorrect, but if you're really fat or gimpy, this type of boat is not for you. It sounds like hatch size and placement are going to be focused on though, since NTSB is already mentioning it. Though it would be interesting to know the expertise of the NTSB people regarding boat design. I haven't seen any specific negative comments by USCG on the escape hatch as of yet.
The article reminded me of one thing that could be improved upon, and that I believe the video was trying to correct: Typically on these boats when you do either overnighters, or else are doing a long day trip that requires the boat to leave at like 0300, they are setup so that divers can arrive from late afternoon the day before the dive to an hour or so before the boat departs. Departures from those SoCal harbors for those trips are almost always between 0000-0400, so most people show up the evening before and sack out on the boat.
This means that you have people constantly trickling in through the night, and there's no way to give an "all hands" safety briefing until the first dive site the following morning. In the Conception's case, they were on their last night, so everyone had their safety briefing. Had something like this happened the first night, new people on the boat would not have known a lot of safety information unless they asked or else read one of the briefing binders or placards.
ETA: Rewatching the video, I have to add that the "man overboard" part was inadequate IMO. When you have multiple people on board, I was always taught that one person has their eyes and pointer finger on the MOB at all times. You shout for someone else to grab the ring or whatever, but NEVER take your eyes off the person in the water (unless someone else has confirmed eyes on), because it's incredibly easy to lose sight of them.
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https://apnews.com/article/labor-day-fires-transportation-california-55958fced5e71dc0e208aba142006697
https://apnews.com/article/678d87b634d018a0b36e5be33acbca67
I am betting the diving boat captain is going to be spending quite a bit of time in jail.
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I was just reading about it this morning. A few things new and old:
Yeah, it certainly looks like some crew negligence at this point. Note my post above about "not the sharpest knives in the drawer" and add to that "lax and lazy".
No definitive cause of fire, but based on where it started, I think we know.
A new item for me - several passengers had shoes on, so people likely had the time and were trying to get out. We know now that they all died of smoke inhalation. Small comfort, but 1000X better than being burned alive.
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And I thought the whole duck boat thing was pretty bad. =|
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https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/940997136/california-dive-boat-captain-charged-in-fire-that-killed-34
The indictments came down yesterday: 34 counts of negligent manslaughter for the captain. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and I note the captain is 67 years old, so I suspect he will die in Federal prison.
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I understand the whole "captain goes down with the ship" thing, and do NOT understand maritime law, but wow - while he absolutely has culpability, I kinda feel bad for him taking what appears to be 100% of the criminal charges.
The Fritzlers, to me, absolutely have some criminal culpability if the captain does. This is where my lack of understanding of maritime law comes in. It appears between their lawyer using that maritime law loophole, and that they supposedly met minimum Coast Guard requirements, they're going to walk away from the criminal side. I'm sure there will be some civil settlement of one kind or another.
While they may have met USCG requirements, that charging station and overall electric outlet issue has been an issue since back when I went out on their boats. Fixing or upgrading it should have been an obvious common sense thing to do, and was obvious even ten years ago.