My first incident...

[Fishyhead]

I don't understand how a wing failure resulted in the backplate (metal slate in the OP) and cylinders pop off. The harness should be secured to the plate and the cyclinders secured to it.

As others have said, all divers should have familiarized themselves with each others gear before the dive, especially since one is using a different setup. When I'm on doubles and get assigned an instabuddy, I go over my equipment and assess if they "get" it. If not, I treat that dive as a solo and splash with that mindset.

Getting behind the troubled diver and establishing positive buoyancy was the right thing to do. You're out of reach of a panicked hands and can more easily establish control. Once buoyancy is established for both of you, that's the time to plan your next action. Diver 1 trying to take his rig off and getting stuck could have compounded the problems had you needed to get the rig off for real.

Have you tried using your trilobite with dry gloves? I'm a wetsuit diver and find them too small to handle with gloves so I use a knife that's attached to my BCD cumberbund (easy to reach).

Did diver 2 assist you and diver 1 swim out?

 

[OTF]

Huh, catastrophic failure of a single-bladder wing at the surface in doubles is pretty scary.

I guess that would be time to ditch weights, if not the whole rig.

 

[Christozs]

Agreed. There were some red flags before you went in. Particularly with Diver 2. Anyone that is knowingly diving with malfunctioning gear is not someone that you want to dive with as a buddy. At best, they will be unreliable. They can also be a danger to you as they could put you in a position where you’ll have to deal with their problems. Sounds like in this case Diver 2 was just unreliable as you dealt with the problems with Diver 1’s gear.

That brings up another area to learn from. Make sure you know how you buddy’s gear works. In this case, Diver 1’s doubles configuration was new to you and unfamiliar.

Yeah, that is one of the thing that i learned. Even one red flag is a no-go for me. I already told Diver 2 that he needs to fix it before we dive again otherwise he should relax at home.
I also have questions about the reliability of Diver 1 after all this.
And from now on i will always make sure i know the gear of each one around me. It is hard sometimes to do so, as it is cold outside and everyone is in a hurry.

I don't understand how a wing failure resulted in the backplate (metal slate in the OP) and cylinders pop off. The harness should be secured to the plate and the cyclinders secured to it.

As others have said, all divers should have familiarized themselves with each others gear before the dive, especially since one is using a different setup. When I'm on doubles and get assigned an instabuddy, I go over my equipment and assess if they "get" it. If not, I treat that dive as a solo and splash with that mindset.

Getting behind the troubled diver and establishing positive buoyancy was the right thing to do. You're out of reach of a panicked hands and can more easily establish control. Once buoyancy is established for both of you, that's the time to plan your next action. Diver 1 trying to take his rig off and getting stuck could have compounded the problems had you needed to get the rig off for real.

Have you tried using your tribolite with dry gloves? I'm a wetsuit diver and find them too small to handle with gloves so I use a knife that's attached to my BCD cumberbund (easy to reach).

Did diver 2 assist you and diver 1 swim out?

From the inspection i quickly did afterwards it seems like the holes where the backplate was attached were ripped.



I was lucky he didn't panick at all, he was holding tight on the buoy and letting me do whatever i was trying to.

I haven't tried using trilobite with drygloves. I will try next time but if you say so i will probably have troubles too. So maybe a knife will be my next purchase.

Diver 2 was swimming next to us while i was pulling Diver 1. At the end he apologized for not being much help saying that he had his "own equipment issues" and later on he added that adrenaline made him "not act accordingly".

 

[Marie13]

Using a trilobite with dry gloves isn’t an issue at all. Just make sure you can get at it easily. I keep one on each of my computers (a computer on each wrist).

 

[johndiver999]

So one of the regulators on the doubles rig had the first stage freeze up and started delivering air at too high of a pressure? Then this caused the second stage to free flow AND the BC inflator to freeflow (inflate actually) and then the OP valve(s) froze/failed causing the wing to explode?

Is that the basic situation or presumption. I don’t understand what happened.

 

[Fishyhead]

You did a good job! Diver 1 was lucky he was already on the surface with you and the buoy near by when this happened.

The conditions you guys are diving in is unforgiving so I hope Diver 2 understands things could have turned out tragic for all three of you because he chose to dive with known faulty gear.

 

[Belzelbub]

Yeah, that is one of the thing that i learned. Even one red flag is a no-go for me. I already told Diver 2 that he needs to fix it before we dive again otherwise he should relax at home.
I also have questions about the reliability of Diver 1 after all this.
And from now on i will always make sure i know the gear of each one around me. It is hard sometimes to do so, as it is cold outside and everyone is in a hurry.

Agreed on Diver 1 as well. I’m really having a hard time trying to understand how the bladder blew. Either it was in real bad shape to begin with, or the inflator (mechanical or biological) was stuck. If it wasn’t due to a mechanical failure, I have serious questions about Diver 1. At the surface, you should only inflate enough to establish buoyancy.

Even if the inflator was stuck, the diver should have disconnected the inflator hose, though that may be hard to do with gloves. Was the manual dump not working as well?

 

[Fishyhead]

From the inspection i quickly did afterwards it seems like the wholes where the backplate was attached were ripped.
View attachment 641009 View attachment 641013

The tearing around the upper holes in the back of that wing doesn't make sense. It looks to me like the cylinders and backplate were bolted to the wing through separate holes. The cylinders pulled out of the wing and tore a big enough hole to cause the wing to separate from the backplate, resulting in the cylinders flopping back/over like the Christozs describes.

 

[Christozs]

I am sorry i am not that technical and detailed but i don't know much either. After talking to him, I can only tell you that i remembered wrong on one part. The backplate was hanging after Diver 1 took the one side of the harness off, not from the start. That was my bad.

For the rest i can only tell you what he told me today.

"Both the inflator and exhaust valve where frozen.... that’s why it’s exploded... so I need a new wing"
"one half of the bladder was one big hole ..... the tanks and backplate was separated because of the explosion"
"The harness was still on .... the real problem was that the twin tanks went off from the harness"
"It keep pumping because it’s froze. I could feel that the over pressure valve didn’t open" (talking about the inflation hose of his bcd)
"One thing I have learned is never to leave my equipment in the car when it’s freezing outside. It was cold even before we went in the water"
"I had a two buddies and your octo and could have cut the harness so we (I) was never in real danger "

 

[barth]

Even if the inflator was stuck, the diver should have disconnected the inflator hose, though that may be hard to do with gloves. Was the manual dump not working as well?

Things can happen very fast. Long time ago a buddy was having problems with his inflator.This was at the surface before we did start the dive. His inflator was not stuck but it was auto inflating his wing. It was not possible anymore to disconnect. There was ice at the connector. He had to close one valve of his doubles.