Exploding scuba tank kills one - Florida

[Jax]

Also from Violent scuba tank blast kills Iraqi war veteran at St. Petersburg condo - St. Petersburg Times:

Jackson wondered if the cause of Sunday's explosion is the same as the 1981 Lakeland incident — recent exposure to heat.

In the Lakeland case, the tank had recently been refinished. Exposure to high heat, 300 degrees or so, can cause aluminum to crystallize and become brittle, Jackson said.

"If it were to be crystallized by a heat source, it would be a ticking time bomb," he said.

 

[Jax]

Here's a problem: The above says,

"We have a dive master and he came out to examine the tanks," [St. Petersburg Fire and Rescue Lt. Joel] Granata said. "Right now it's under investigation."

However, St. Pete veteran killed by exploding scuba tank | TBO.com says:

"Several other scuba tanks were in the apartment. The Tampa Police Department's bomb squad inspected the tanks and let the air out."

Hard to find the fill pressure if the Bomb Squad emptied the tanks. Assumption is that they didn't have SPGs mounted on each tank, to know the fill pressure . . . .

 

[AevnsGrandpa]

My heart felt condolenses to his family.

After reading through this thread and going to the news site, I am surprised the article said he was outside carrying a tank and it exploded. If you look at the first picture of the apartments front windows the explosion looks to have happened inside, blowing the blinds and curtains outward. It wil be interesting to finally heard what was the cause.

Jeff

 

[gypsyjim]

If the victim was passing out threw the door, and blown back into the apartment, as was suggested earlier, the force of the blast could certainly still have caused the windows in that room to blow outward. Enough force directed at the doorway to lift a person through it, is certainly going to seriously raise the pressure in that room.

Looking at the picture you do get the impression that the blast came from within, but..... a lot of questions yet to be answered here.

 

[adurso]

If the victim was passing out threw the door, and blown back into the apartment, as was suggested earlier, the force of the blast could certainly still have caused the windows in that room to blow outward. Enough force directed at the doorway to lift a person through it, is certainly going to seriously raise the pressure in that room.

Looking at the picture you do get the impression that the blast came from within, but..... a lot of questions yet to be answered here.

Although a tank can create a big explosion, it would be difficult to loft an adult through the air, and to create enough overpressure to blow out indows and doors....

 

[Black Jack]

Not at all, if the tank was inside the apartment when it blew it could easily create that kind of damage and move someone. The explosion here in Fayetteville earlier this year did a lot more than shattering windows and it blew people across the room.

 

[Notso_Ken]

No, oxygen by itself does not explode any more than straight air. The o2 has to be supporting something else that combusts.

But, agree that the wording is poor and does not lead one to understand what did happen.

Ken

Saw a few other stories but the wording of some was really poor about where the explosion happened exactly: inside the apartment, outside, at the car, etc. It seems that he had carried it outside and the explosion blew him back thru the door of the apartment.

Wouldn't it have to be Oxygen to explode like that...??

 

[Blue Sparkle]

The article says "he just came back from Iraq".

It sounds like one article says that but another one says that he has been back for over a year, and gives details.

Vanhorn, who is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, learned to scuba dive while serving in the Marine Corps. He trained when he was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, his father said.

He moved to Holiday from Iowa a little over a year ago, a few months after he left the service.

A little over a year plus a few months makes me think he would have been back for around a year and a half or so. The info came from the Tampa Bay, Florida news | St. Pete Times & tbt article.

Reading the comments in that article sure shows that there are numerous myths and misconceptions about SCUBA tanks.

 

[Jax]

to burst forth with sudden violence or noise from internal energy: as

a : to undergo a rapid chemical or nuclear reaction with the production of noise, heat, and violent expansion of gases <dynamite explodes>​

b : to burst violently as a result of pressure from within​

Please note it did not have to make a fireball. It just expanded incredibly quickly . . . so yes, the overcompression can cause walls to bulge and windows to burst and people to go flying. So any gas expansion from 3000psi to 14psi would do this.

 

[Notso_Ken]

You are absolutely correct that some divers double up the burst disks. On the flip side, I have seen a tank that had just been filled have a disk let go. Nowheres near the rated burst pressure.


ken

My condolences to all of the family and friends. This is so strange. So sad.

The earlier mention of Mr. Vanhorn's cave training got me thinking…

Do I remember correctly that some divers in the cave diving community defeat the burst disk system by "doubling up" the disks?

I seem to recall that the burst disk was seen as a failure point, in that it might rupture even when there was no over-pressure situation. This would be a very bad thing in a cave situation so I can follow the logic, even though I would never follow the practice for the kind of diving that I do.

You would have to be *so* much more careful with your maintenance and filling protocols to offset the risk added by defeating this safety system.

Can anyone confirm that I'm not imagining that this practice exists? If it does exist, is it common in the Fla. area?