As a private pilot -
I'll read NTSB aviation accident reports - with the hope of better understanding the cause of someone's misfortune - so that I may avoid similar circumstances. They don't contain speculation, personal attacks, or one of several other forms of misinformation.
Rarely - if ever - do posts on internet blogs and forums about scuba accidents contain the same quality of objective information. It's unfortunate that a similar mechanism doesn't exist. The IUCRR's reports were pretty decent - and the last one they did was in 2008...
But therein you actually have the nub of the problem. NTSB reports are completed by trained investigators with access to all the information, statements and physical evidence, and are written from a professional point of view. They are not rushed out into the public purview, and are considered, proof read, and checked by colleagues before publication.
As a senior investigator I used to compile similar reports in the police, for coroners, courts and other judicial processes. I investigated industrial deaths,road fatalities, a couple of fatalities resulting from light aircraft crashes, one from a helicopter, a couple of parachutists whose chutes didn't open and several glider crashes, amongst several hundred others.
I never made any public comment or statement until I was satisfied I had all the facts carefully lined up and analysed. It was always a deliberate policy that the investigator did not talk to the press directly, that way nothing could be inadvertently revealed. We prepared a script, a press officer delivered it, and dealt with questions. If questions related to facts not in the script they did not comment, if questions related to general policies or procedures they were free to address them.
Internet forums are not the same sort of environment at all, there is no official access to the facts or evidence, unless a participant decides to provide details, and are like the press, what they don't know they fill in with speculation and supposition.
I would also caution against taking first hand witnesses accounts at face value until they have been considered and compared to others. I can assure you from first hand experience everyone sees an incident from a different viewpoint, focusses on different aspects that hold some relevance for them, and no two people see or remember an event exactly the same way. They are not lying, but personal background and experience will colour their memory. It is also necessary to remember that witnesses have their own emotions to deal with, and can focus on certain aspects and ignore others quite inadvertently.
Sadly we will have to deal with the shortcomings of internet fora because their is no professional national body to investigate scuba accidents, and no authority that is going to have all the facts that they are going to share.
So the best we can do is take what we do know, without blame storming or pompous posturing consider what it MAY mean if we have it right, and then use the discussions as a learning tool to prevent other accidents in the future.
I deliberately say OTHER accidents, and NOT other SIMILAR accidents, because we may not know what actually happened, but discussing what to do if you see someone going in circles whilst using a rebreather, or if someone has a CO2 hit, or hypercapnia may educate readers and help someone one day in the future if that particular situation does occur, even if that is NOT what happened this time.
In that spirit lets discuss what we know, what may have happened and how it may have been avoided or help provided, but lets not assume that is what happened or try to apportion blame.
Dive safe - Phil.
