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Jon and all I felt bad not being able to
attend the convention in Fl. But after today
I really feel bad. It sounds like it was quite
the event. I missed one here. I am sure it
wasn't humorous to the players at the time, but wow.
I don't think anything was miss handled in the
operation of the dive. I do not think any of this
would be in a pre-dive checklist. Yes the
question of what happens when support vessel
has a problem should be considered along
with a thunderstorm, or even a meteor hitting
close.
When I launched mine, the first thing I noticed
was how little weight, affects the trim. It came at quite the
surprise. I can see how this kind
of event can happen.
I do however think we should have discussed
this. To me mistakes are much more valuable
then success, as so much can be learned from
them if given the chance.
Dean
p.s. Jim howed ya get all that salt out
In a message dated 1/16/2011 12:40:33 P.M. Central Standard Time,
jonw@psubs.org writes:
Not
exactly the way I intended to spend my day today, but ok. I didn't
know that the incident with bionic guppy was festering in the minds of
people so let's go ahead and discuss it.
SUMMARY
In Ft. Pierce,
the BIONIC GUPPY took on water through an open hatch and
foundered.
The BG holds a pilot and two passengers. During the course
of our
submarine diving operations that day, the support ship which was
provided
to us free-of-charge developed operating problems in both
engines.
The Captain of the support ship requested that the submarine
be contacted
immediately to hook back up to the support ship so that we
could head back
into the boat yard. The BG was currently diving
underwater in about
15 feet of water approximately 100 feet from the
support vessel with pilot
and two passengers and did not have
operational underwater
communication. I ordered Ben Fritz (support
diver) to immediately
swim to the BG, bang on the hull for an immediate
surface (previously
agreed upon at our pre-dive meeting), and then order
the BG to come back
to the support vessel. A small two-man dingy was
sent with Ben for
support. Just as Ben reached the submarine, the
Captain of the
support vessel made a decision to immediately return to
the boat yard due
to the condition of the ships engines. While the
support vessel did
tow the BG out to the dive site, the boat yard was
also within operational
distance of the BG and the BG could easily
return to the boat yard under
its own power. That is my direct
observation since I was located on
the support vessel at the time.
Since we were now headed back to the
boat yard, the rest of this
incident AS I KNOW IT is based upon statements
provided to me by those
who were there. None of us on the support
vessel witnessed the
foundering of the BG. The individual statements
by those who were with
the BG differ rather significantly in various
ways. However, general
consensus shows that the BG began making it's
way back to the boat yard
under its own power with Ben Fritz following
behind it. The water was
shallow, no deeper than 15 feet, and very
warm under the July sun. The
combination of the water temperature
and three occupants resulted in
uncomfortable high temps within the sealed
submarine. One or both
occupants requested that the BG pilot stop
and let them get out to ride
in the dingy where it would be cooler.
The pilot obliged and during
disembarkation of the passengers the balance
of BG shifted aft causing
the vessel to pitch down by the aft, enough that
the conning tower (now
open to let the passengers out) lowered to the
point that water began to
enter the cabin. While the pilot hurried
the last passenger to get off
the submarine, enough water had collected
within the cabin to cause it
to become negatively buoyant. The pilot
was outside the submarine at
the time to make room for the passengers to
get out, and tried to hold
the hatch shut but as the sub descended due to
the weight of the water
in the cabin the pilot could not hang on and had
to let go. The hatch
opened again underwater allowing complete
flooding of the vessel. The
vessel rested in approximately 8-10 feet
of water depending on the tide,
approximately 25 feet from
shore.
Recovery was achieved by renting an air pump, opening some vents
on the
underside of BIONIC GUPPY, and pumping in air to displace the water
inside. The hatch did not have a mechanism to secure it from
outside,
so numerous vice grips were used to keep the hatch shut.
The recovery
was severely hampered by some loose rags within the sub that
were used
to wipe condensation off the viewports. Unknown to us, as
the water was
being pumped out the rags were dragged by the outgoing water
and heavily
wedged within a vent that prevented water from escaping.
Due to the
angle of the sub on the bottom and the position of the vent, it
was
impossible to unclog even with appropriate tools. A decision was
made
by the divers to open the hatch and enter the vessel removing the
rags
and any other loose material. Once that was accomplished, the
recovery
was near text book and the sub was raised within a short
time. Recovery
started at about 10am that morning and took the
entire day (about 8pm or
so) due to the issue with the rags. Had the
rags not been in the sub,
or stowed away, the recovery likely would have
been completed by noon at
the latest.
Now, let me address
some of the non-event related statements made in
David's email.
1)
David said, "It was put out that a club only forum discussion of this
mishap so as to determine what exactly led to this event would take
place by years end. I may have missed this discussion but have thus far
heard nothing."
I do not recall any such discussion. However,
on 7/26/10, David wrote
me personally asking, "What if you were to make
use of a psub member
only forum to openly discuss the events of the past
convention?"
Because we already had a member-only forum there was no
need for me to
create a new one, so I responded back to David on the same
day saying,
"There's no rule prohibiting anyone from discussing the events
of the
convention, however I won't be participating in those
discussions. I am
still gathering statements from various people so
I can publish a list
of recommendations and requirements for future
conventions based upon
the information and suggestions I receive.
Once that is published I
think there will be lots to discuss."
I
felt my response was obvious enough that if David wanted to start a
discussion on the incident he was free to do so. I also stated the
same
to others who had queried me about what we as-a-club were going to
publish, if anything. I said I would not be participating in
the
discussion because at the time I was collecting statements from the
direct participants of the incident, as well as many observers, via
private email so that we could piece together an incident report for
release at some point in the future and wanted to remain a neutral so as
to not influence any responses that I got back from these
people.
2) David said, "To me it is disappointing to see that
rather than be
transparent that some mistakes and laps of safety may have
taken place
at this event, we as a group would rather completely forget it
happened
and hence learn and share nothing. The next time we may not be so
fortunate. History has a way of repeating itself...it's best not to
ignore it."
As described above in #1, there was no attempt to hide
anything or keep
anything from anyone. Not one person was ever
directed by myself to not
discuss this topic or raise it on the mailing
list. I personally did
not see a need to do so myself, and so I did
not. As I described on
7/26 to David privately, my intent was to
produce a list of
recommendations and requirements for future conventions
and that those
documents would naturally lead to a discussion of the
incident when they
were released.
David is correct that mistakes
were made. Based upon the BG incident
and suggestions from many
participants at Ft Pierce, I did take
immediate action. On 7/29 I
sent a lengthy email to the member-only
mailing list detailing the
difficulties of planning remote conventions
from NH. Most of you
have no clue how close the Vancouver convention
came to becoming nothing
more than agreeing to meet on some street
corner and then deciding what to
do when we got there. Those kind of
plans may be fine for a
impromptu weekend together with a couple of your
sub-diving buddies, but
is not appropriate when people are traveling
thousands of miles and
spending thousands of dollars to participate in
an event. I was more
than hesitant to entertain plans for Ft. Pierce
based upon the
difficulties encountered with Vancouver, but I was
assured that I would
have to do nothing except provide high level
guidance. Well, that
didn't happen. The primary coordinator did some
initial
investigations and then became severely ill. That left me to
once
again plan a remote convention alone from NH. In April/May
time-frame, I came within a keystroke of canceling Ft. Pierce because
the difficulty of planning it surpassed Vancouver. There was much
less
information available online regarding potential facilities and there
was a huge runaround regarding diving. In retrospect, canceling Ft.
Pierce is exactly what I should have done but I continued on, thinking
that something was better than nothing. The result was probably the
worst planned event I have done and the blame for that rests squarely on
my shoulders and I apologize to those whom attended. This is why I
have
committed to not repeating the same in the
future.
Additionally, I reviewed all the follow-ups and suggestions
that were
sent to me privately by Ft. Pierce participants who were a
witness to
the BG incident and created two documents for future sub-diving
events.
The first is a "prelaunch checklist" which describes the
minimum
condition and equipment a submarine must meet at any PSUBS
sponsored
event before it is even allowed in the water. The second
document is a
"predive checklist" which describes the minimum requirements
a submarine
must meet at any PSUBS sponsored event, after the sub has
entered the
water but before it is allowed to dive. I sent both of
these documents
to the PSUBS Council for review before publishing, on
10/15/10. I did
receive feedback on the documents by the end of
October, but then got
busy myself with work and other issues. While
I intended for these
documents to go out to members by the end of year, I
simply did not meet
my own deadline.
Those documents will
definitely be published and all submarines in the
future will have to
comply with those requirements. We will take input
from our members
on the contents of the documents and potential changes,
but not sacrifice
safety over convenience. Furthermore, my hope is that
in the future
we will have "event officers" who will have the authority
to prevent a sub
from diving as part of a PSUBS sponsored event if it
does not meet minimum
requirements.
I think those of us in Ft. Pierce all recognized that we
need to make
changes in the way we operate. There was no
disagreement about that.
However, we also need to recognize that
such change takes time. This is
a volunteer led organization and we
cannot force people we are not
paying to produce answers for us in a
specific time frame. Most of us
have jobs and/or other commitments
that also vie for our time. We have
many consumers and less than a
handful of contributors in terms of
leadership. If you want to see
things happen faster, better, then
transition from a consumer to a
contributor.
Jon
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