What equipment failures have you seen underwater?

[S. starfish]

As far as in water failures go I have been on dives where
-yoke o-rings blew
-a second stage came detatched from the hose
-my first stage seized up and greatly restricted air flow once. No idea why.
- BCD's have not held air. Once because the diver was using an old p.o.s. bcd and a hole and worn itself through the bladder. Once because apparently i'm incapable of attaching my inflator hose to my wing properly - caught that one nice and early though.
- Computer failures. I had the display on an old US Divers comp. go on me and I've seen a few computers (all apeks quantums actually) start doing very strange things underwater. I've also had my sunnto start diving in the parking lot, though technically that's not underwater.

That about wraps it up for me.

 

[jeckyll]

Hmm let see

Inflator free flow (thank the big blue H and their crappy SS inflator). Twice.
lose hose on first stage (both high & low pressure)
blown o-ring on first stage
Dry suit valve seriously leaking (it's a problem when the water is 43 degrees )
Fin strap coming undone

Nothing really serious. The inflator could have been iffy but I caught it early the first time & the second time it happened just before surfacing in the shallow

Oh, forgot that I had 2 computers fail, one of them in the water.

 

[KOMPRESSOR]

Cell phones... Blue tooths... Garmin GPS'... Compact cameras...

Waddayaknow! -All stopped working under water!!!

 

[DiverLS]

One blown O ring
One blown HP hose

The second problem (it was DM's hose) we missed the Hammerhead Sharks at Big Brother, Red Sea.

 

[caseybird]

I had an o-ring extrude just before I put my head underwater once- this was from a DIN connector. This really made me think twice, I didn't think an o-ring could escape from DIN. I inspect how the o-ring is seating when I attach it to the tank valve now.
I had trouble with a leaky inflator once, slow leak into the BCD. These are seriously cheap valves. Basically a tire stem under all the plastic. For the price I'd hope someone made better.

 

[mheaster]

Hmm let see

Inflator free flow (thank the big blue H and their crappy SS inflator).

Me too after a very murky 85' dive. Couldn't figure out why exactly I was having so much difficulty maintain 15' Stop? took me about 20 seconds to figure it out and had to grab a line maintain about 15' and get it disconnected.

Oh yeah I lost a weight belt (plastic buckle) on Entry on my 8th dive (U-352 off coast of NC). Yes, I had ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS making that dive at that point of my dive career BUT I went on to make it with no weight belt (wearing only a skin) and going hand-over-hand to maintain depth rest of the dive! I was too stupid to thumb that dive. Didn't want to miss the opportunity to dive on a German U-Boat!

I have ALWAYS used a SCUBAPRO METAL buckle on every weightbelt since then!

 

[boulderjohn]

I had an o-ring extrude just before I put my head underwater once- this was from a DIN connector. This really made me think twice, I didn't think an o-ring could escape from DIN.

This happened to a DM using a DIN on a dive I did this summer in Cozumel. It was very early in the dive, and I frankly could not see clearly exactly what had happened to cause the failure because of the escaping bubbles. I was not sure what he was going to do, but when I saw he was going to try to fix it, I helped him out. I held the rig while he worked, and I gave him my alternate while he shut off the tank, fixed the problem, and put it all back together again. I was pretty impressed. It would never have occured to me to try to fix it in place.

He was thinking of continuing the dive, but he decided he had lost too much air and went back for a new tank whilst we all examined the coral in the vicinity and awaited his return.

 

[redacted]

I had trouble with a leaky inflator once, slow leak into the BCD. These are seriously cheap valves. Basically a tire stem under all the plastic. For the price I'd hope someone made better.

Were you interested in something better for your BC or for your tires???

The standard LPI hose employs a Schradder valve (tire stem valve) to seal the hose when it is disconnected from your BC. Few, if any, inflators also incorporate that valve. So that valve, which seems to work OK in both tires and LPI hoses, may not have been the source of the leak.

 

[oldschool]

Back in the seventies, while diving in a German lake, my reg began to freeflow at 90 feet. We made a controlled, but interesting ascent. It appeared that an ice crystal had formed in the first stage causing the problem. That's pretty much been my only equipment failure so far.

 

[Nemrod]

At least three LP hose failures, one with me about 500 feet back in Devils Eye. All three resulted from kinking the LP hose at the fitting.

Some sort of unidentified first stage failure about three years ago at Weeki Wachee. A child accompnaied by his dad, loosely a part of our group, diving with a brand new single hose (unidentified), first stage failed with a kapop that could be heard across the basin along with the torrent of bubbles. His dad and Net Doc who was hovering about assisted the youngster to the surface.

I had a failure of the HP diaphram on a Mares MR12 first stage, it also went kaboom and followed with a torrent of bubbles that rapidly emptied my tank. Years later, the same reg did the same thing just before a cavern dive at Blue Springs while I was walking to the head spring. I was on doubles and had twin regs, scared a bunch of people and I swear this cop dude was acting all Barney Fife and was trying to pull his gun and find his bullet. The kapop skeered him.

Broken camband while diving, my wife, tank tried to run off and hide, I found it.

Broken weight belt buckles, mostly plastic but one metal Aqua Craft also.

Broken Halycon spring strap on my Jet Fin, POC piece of plastic junk broke which certainly caused a problem.

Lights, not working, best thing I figure is assume your light does not work, then if it does you can be pleasently surprised.

Gosh, so many, I cannot possibly remember them all.

N