Dean, Well said!
To all!
All I can add is the old saying "Sh## Happens"!
There's hardly an accident that happens only because of one
thing that had gone wrong. As owners and operators of
machines and participants in activity, we all create risk and
assume some liability. As a sub owner I know I gamble some or all of the
investment I made in my sub every time I put it in the water. I also take
some chance of getting hurt or even dying. It's a calculated
risk I CHOOSE to take.
No matter how many predive checks I make or how many
times I think things through, the best I can do is lessen the chance of trouble,
not eliminate it.
Guys!, Remember Sh## Happens! Try to reduce it if you
can, but don't get carried away with guilt, blame, tears or over
regulating.
Just shake hands and get about cleaning up the mess.
Life goes on........
Dan H.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2011 5:16
PM
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] FW: sub
ops
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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