(6/28/2005) Instructor dies on the Yukon

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MyDiveLog

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Scuba Instructor
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Found this on CDNN:

Steven O. Donathan, 50, was last seen Saturday afternoon by a student he was leading on a 100-foot dive to the Canadian destroyer Yukon. The two became separated, and Donathan never resurfaced.


The 366-foot decommissioned Canadian warship is a popular diving destination in the so-called Wreck Alley off the coast of San Diego. Rescue divers searched the ship until dark Saturday. The search continued Sunday, when divers made about 60 descents and searched 90 percent of the ship's interior, lifeguards said.
The search resumed at 6 a.m. Monday, and divers located Donathan's body several hours later. Divers were unable to recover the body immediately, because it was wedged in an area that made access difficult, lifeguards said.
"For someone as experienced as Steve, the Yukon should have been a piece of cake," said Steve Haynes, former president of San Diego Council of Divers, who heard that the missing diver was Donathan.
The Yukon was deliberately sunk two miles off the coast five years ago. It was the site of a fatal dive in late 2000 when Monica Vila, a 41-year-old recreational diver, died as she descended toward the warship with two family members.
Another experienced diver, Mia Tegner, a 53-year-old marine biologist, died about a week later after diving on the Yukon and other sunken ships. Authorities say she ran out of air as she was coming to the surface, missing a decompression stop. Instead of heading to a hyperbaric chamber, investigators believe she grabbed another tank and dove back in to decompress and was never seen alive again.

It sounds like the instructor died but the student survived. Does anyone know anything more about this?
 
Rescue divers find body of missing scuba diving instructor
Powered by CDNN - CYBER DIVER News Network
by LISA PETRILLO and MICHELE CLOCK

Stephen Donothan
Stephen Donathan - "I looked into the abyss and the abyss looked back."
SAN DIEGO, California (26 June 2005) -- The body of a missing scuba instructor was found in a sunken warship off the coast of Mission Beach Monday afternoon, 1½ days after he was last seen alive.

Authorities had been searching for 50-year-old Steven O. Donathan of San Diego since Saturday night, when he vanished during a dive to the Yukon, a scuttled destroyer 100 feet below the surface.

"We were notified by the diving team that they have located him," said San Diego Lifeguard Lt. Greg Buchanan. "He was on the bottom level of the Yukon, the sixth level, basically on the ocean floor. He's in a very difficult place to access, in very close quarters."

Some 25 divers had been helping search for Donathan, Buchanan said. Donathan's family was at the lifeguard headquarters Monday awaiting recovery of his body.

A small group of divers was expected to go into the Yukon after carefully planning how to remove the body from the ship, Buchanan said. He said it was too early to tell what caused the experienced diver's death.

Yukon map
Click map to enlarge
"My understanding is (the recovery group) will be videotaped and dive in a very meticulous manner in an effort to explain what happened," Buchanan said.

For two days rescue workers had searched by helicopter and Coast Guard cutter, with more than 30 scuba divers performing more than 60 total dives.

Five years ago the Yukon, a 366-foot decommissioned Canadian destroyer, was sunk two miles off Mission Beach in an area deemed Wreck Alley.

Donathan is the first person to die while diving inside the wreck. Two others have died in connection with Yukon dives, one on the way down to the sunken ship and another after earlier visiting the site.

Donathan was certified to dive hundreds of feet below the surface and had written about how much he loved reaching greater depths. After years of searching, Donathan led a TV crew to the wreckage of a B-36 bomber that crashed off the coast of La Jolla during a test flight in 1952.

A memorial service was being planned for Wednesday at La Jolla Shores.

http://www.cdnn.info/news/safety/s050627.html
 
This name rings a bell ... was he a ScubaBoard member?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
Source Link
Posted by from John Moore at DiveBums on June 28, 2005 at 16:22
In Reply to: Body of diver recovered from sunken ship posted by on June 28, 2005 at 13:53

It was not my intention to discuss details of where Steve Donathan's
body was found until after Wednesday evening, but unfortunately it has
gotten picked up by the local regular media (TV news, U-T). Since they
often muddle things, I'll give the information I have now. It raises
some issues. It's important that whatever dealing with these issues
that you all do be respectful.

On the lower levels of the Yukon, in the middle (fore to aft middle),
is the boiler room. The boiler room is a crowded, dangerous place (for
divers), and was never intended for divers when the Yukon was prepared
for sinking. It was not prepped for divers as the rest of the ship
was, and all access points were welded shut. In other words, it was
off limits... and for good reason.

At least one of those access points has been opened, probably by human
action (not deterioration). Steve's body was found well within the
boiler room, past that now open access. They had some difficulty
removing him from the boiler room.

This access point has not (yet) been welded back shut, although it is
now chained and locked. The SD Lifeguard Service has lifted the
restriction on the Yukon, meaning that you can go dive it again. If
you see a chained shut access point, do the right thing and stay out.
 
In case anyone doesn't know. The boiler room is the largest blacked out area in the ship's map from the above link. I sailed on the Yukon for 8 years and worked in the boiler room for part of that time.
Very sad story, I guess we'll never know what he was thinking.
My condolenses to his friends and family.
 
Sorry about the duplicate post... Did not see it... Trying to delete it.
 
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