Equipment Failure - your data please!

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400+ dives, one life threatening failure.

I was on a night dive on a wreck in 85' of water in the Atlantic off of Long Island NY. Once inside the wreck I saw a good sized lobster and I (unwisely) put my penetration reel down in the sand so I could have both hands free to grab and bag the lobster. After getting it in the bag I couldn't find my reel which was my lifeline out of the wreck, I had apparently drifted slightly due to current or my own movements and due to the poor visibility the reel was out of sight. I found it within a minute but it was the longest minute of my life.

I consider that a failure of the most important piece of gear I have - my BRAIN.
 
Hi all! Please share your numbers, even if you've never had an incident.

How many air-supply related life endangering equipment failures have you had?
How many total dives have you made?
How many hours (if you know) diving?

Thanks
307 dives so far. 190 hours.
An average of 1 hour per week in scuba in the school pool since 3 years.

How many air-supply related life endangering equipment failures have you had?
Never. Only I remember an air tank with bad smell owing to exhausted filters of the Operator.
 
Non-commercial dive number and hours > 1500
No life endangering failures however I did have a few failures-most could be attributed to my negligence.

1) Second stage air shut off due to a jam nut not secured to the regulator body. It allowed the second stage (old Dacor) to rotate on the air barrel/hard seat orifice preventing air flow. My buddy was near, however I managed to sort it out before getting to him. This happened before we had octopus/safe second regulators attached to to first stage. Buddy breathing was still the method of air sharing.

2) The hose to my octopus blew an o-ring at the connection to the air barrel. Again, I was guilty of not properly checking/torquing the connection. This caused a lot of noise/bubbling. The leak could not be fixed as the seal was gone, so I kinked the hose which stopped the gas loss.

The rest all happened before entering the water:

3) I blew a tank to yoke valve o-ring just as I was entering the water. I did not properly secure the yoke to the valve. If it had happened underwater the dive was shallow enough to easily reach the surface.

4) HP spool o-ring blow out on the dive boat. This spool had not been serviced in a few years. Again, my fault for not replacing an item known to be a weakness in the system-fortunately I had a spare.

5) The following is not something I had any control over- I had an SPG gauge blow out. The bourdon tube leaked hp gas into the case. The face plate and dial went whistling past my ear about 30 seconds after opening the tank valve. This is the ONLY SPG (Farallon) I've ever seen that did not have a blow out plug. Even it it would have had one, the loss of gas would have been the same. Fortunately I had not entered the water, but again I had a buddy and a leak coming from a hp port may be very noisy, but the gas loss is slow.

Most often equipment failures I've observed others experience over the years. (In no particular order.)

Tank to yoke valve o-rings blowing out due to not properly securing the connection.
SPG spool seals blowing out-same as mine probably due to service negligence. *
Inflator valve sticking causing un-demanded inflation of wing/bcd.

*If you have an spg spool with a tiny leak or was creating champagne bubbles on your last dive, do not try to repair it unless you have (and you should) a spare set of o-rings or an entire spool assembly. Once one of those seals is compromised, trying to fix it by removing the spool or even loosening the fitting will only make things worse. Diving with this type of discrepancy is a subject for a different thread.
 
Actually, that reminds me. I did blow an oring going into the tank on a blue steel valve. Brand new tank, brand new valve, brand new oring. Failed on the first fill just after getting in the water. A week later, the mate to that tank had the exact same issue. I never use those green orings anymore.
 
Dives: ~160
Hours: ~100
Big air failures: ~0

- Regs packed with sand berries on exit. Could have caused unstoppable free flow in surf zone with unusable backup. More a design issue than failure.
- SPG that flooded in 30'
- Some free flows, above 60'
- Valve to reg o-ring leaks at gear up, a few.
 
Hi all! Please share your numbers, even if you've never had an incident.

How many air-supply related life endangering equipment failures have you had?
How many total dives have you made?
How many hours (if you know) diving?

Thanks

G...

Everything you jump into the water with is prone to failure...including the diver...

Service...maintenance...inspection...training...using the right gear for the right purpose...adherence to check lists...regular doctor visits/checks...staying fit and healthy...

Numbers have nothing to do with ''failures''...and sometimes...the ''God's gift to scuba diving'' are the worst offenders...when deviation from norm becomes common practice...

W...
 
Numbers have nothing to do with ''failures''...and sometimes...the ''God's gift to scuba diving'' are the worst offenders...when deviation from norm becomes common practice...

Hey W! Conversation transferred to this thread: Equipment Failure Rates - real data? Post #9
 
Hi all! Please share your numbers, even if you've never had an incident.

How many air-supply related life endangering equipment failures have you had?
How many total dives have you made?
How many hours (if you know) diving?

Thanks

I think you will find that people are replying based on the premise that air supply related failures are only "life endangering" when proper procedures are not followed.

If proper procedures are not followed, is it the equipment that failed, or the procedures?

Safe recreational diving is based on the premise that the air supply isn't perfect.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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