This is one of the dumbest things I've read in a long time:

The investigation determined that Hill and Duque had not been drinking before their fatal dive. One of their untrained tenders reported having one beer, while another reported drinking three beforehand.

"The problem here was that the recreational activity was taking place at the same time as an operational activity that involves risk and specialized training," Wurster said.

"It was the combination of the two things that lends an air to the whole accident event," he said.

The Healy was sailing through the Arctic with about 35 scientists to collect data that would help them map the ocean floor. Hill was the ship's dive officer, as well as the liaison between the scientists and the crew.

As is generally the case in these things, everything went wrong, and just one thing going right would have saved them. How could a ship's dive officer be so stupid as to overload with unjettisonable weights? At least, unless they were on a mix, they probably narced out pretty quickly at that depth and temperature, at which point they were feeling no pain.

Unphuckingbelievable!

They had to be in drysuits. They had to have additional lift.

Just how much weight did they have? Why so much they could not ditch?

The were supposed to go to 20 feet and went to 200? If so, they obviously were not going to the bottom and should have been able to achieve neutral bouyancy.

I wonder the training level of these divers and their tender.

There are so many things wrong here, I don't know where to start. All I can say is, stupidity is a capital crime.

If these two really had not been drinking, then their level or training and preparedness was worse than appalling. And if they were drinking... enough said.

Rand, I didn't see anything in the article that said the weight was unjettisonable. Nonetheless, Ilya, if they couldn't drop those extra 60 pounds, they might not have physically been able to come back up without the help of their tenders. There was enough incompetence on the part of everyone else to kill them, regardless of whether they committed any themselves.

I guess there's at least one important lesson here, tho: if you're going to dive, don't let anyone on your team have been drinking beforehand, just in case.

OK, "unjettisonable" was the wrong word. "Not quickly jettisonable" is a good description of stuffing too many weights in numerous pockets. If it goes in a pocket there should be a quick-release handle for it. A weight belt is also quick release. This is one of the fundamental rules learned from decades of diving.

Rand:
There's not enough information in the article to reach a conclusion. For example, were they surface-supplied or SCUBA? If surface-supplied, asphyxia would be caused by the pressure source being insufficient for the depth, and the tenders didn't read the pneumofathometer. If SCUBA, asphyxia would be caused by the 10X rate of consumption at 200 ft compared to a planned 20 ft dive. Also, did they know the bottom depth before they jumped in? Certainly you use a different gas mix for those two depths, and the article doesn't say.

Your comment about 200 ft on air was accurate. The deepest I've been on compressed air (78% N2, 21% O2, 1% Ar) was 150 ft and I was mentally useless.

If you descend very fast on SCUBA, water pressure can rupture your eardrums. Aside from the pain, water filling Eustachian tubes cause vertigo -- one loses any sense of which way is up. Which of course compounds to the problem if you are in uncontrolled descent and already far below your planned depth.

I am not sure how this works with hard hats -- amb-ient pressure inside the suit will still rupture eardrums, but possibly without vertigo. And Dan is right -- there is too little information in the article. Enough though to say it involved several major screw-ups.

Also, did they know the bottom depth before they jumped in?

Don't know about you, but I will NEVER dive with anyone who jumps in without knowing the depth. Again, not enough info in the article.

The full, damning, report is linked on this story.

It appears a lot of things went very wrong - all the way up the USCG chain of command, from those who greatly expanded the CG diving program, while removing it from Navy perview and without instituting a safety program, to the commander approving a plan that violated many regs in 30 minutes, to the actions of the Dive Officer herself.

According to the report they were on single tank, with the wrong flippers, and no weight belts - and ill fitting dry suits meant they couldnt get their buoyancy right. With the communication problem, disaster was overdetermined.

It is so easy to get sloppy in extreme environments, especially when a conscious decision has been made to relax after a few difficult weeks. However, it will bite you in the ass, sadly enough.

seems like a terrible loss of one of our people.

of course the CinC is stupid enough to invade iraq without translators so lots of stupidity is rolling into the uniformed services

On a somewhat related note, here is a tale of both incredible stupidity and incredible luck (the latter sadly lacking in the Coast Guard story):

http://www.bishopmuseum.org/research/treks/palautz97/cmd.html

As I was reading this, I just kept thinking "Oh no! He is not doing THAT!"

For those who do not know, Dr. Richard Pyle's risk tolerance and willingness to experiment with his own body is legendary. Many of today's standard technical diving procedures he tried first -- on himself. Of course, he was not yet a Ph.D. when the above happened...

Just when you think Anonymous could not be anyt more short bus retarded, he brings Iraq into a thread about something enitrely different.

A J-H, it is time you sought serious psyciatric treatment. All kidding aside, you are simply phucking nuts.

The coast guard relieved several people of command,
ruined careers, disciplined people for failure.

George Bush gives out medals for failure.

Wheter he does or does not is irrelevant to this thread unless you are trying to moronically argue the Coasties deaths are somehow George Bush's fault.