Fire on dive boat Conception in CA

[rjack321]

IF a lithium battery was the initiation point, then I would place my money on either, a voltage surge from the generator damaging the charger, or (most likely) the wrong charger of a cheapo charger being used

Doesn't have to be during charging at all.

A small amount of seawater in the battery compartment of a lithium ion light or scooter is very likely to short the battery and lead to a fire.

 

[king_of_battle]

I, as many, have followed this since it happened. I think we've beat a number of things to death. Forgive my ignorance of the boat - I assume the galley had doors to the dive deck - would that be a correct assumption? For those who dove the boat this time of year were those doors usually left open or closed? Regardless of how combustion starts ventilation plays a key role in how it moves from being a room and contents fire to fully developed. Who knows - maybe the suggestion that comes from this is that all hatches/doors are secured in vessels of similar classification and a door is added for the below deck areas to stop the spread. I'm not a mariner but I am a firefighter from time to time in my town. Closed doors save lives.

 

[The Chairman]

33 bodies have been recovered so far.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Good afternoon everyone. I am very saddened and my heart goes to out to the divers lost, their families and first responder. I have been following this thread and I wonder if anyone has heard any piece of news a far as statements from the surviving crew members. Others have given public statements already, including the owners and the good Samaritan on the scene. I read on reddit that those are being kept quiet as "it's part of the ongoing criminal investigation". This statement confuses me a bit since I was of the understanding that this was an accident. Can anyone shed light on why would this be considered an "ongoing criminal Investigation", or at least on why would the crew members statements would not be made public?

According to the captain of the Grape Escape, one of the crew said he looked into the salon to see if he could get to the passengers. Burning pieces of the ceiling were already falling and the entire salon was engulfed. There was nothing the crew could do but jump before they died as well.

 

[rjack321]

I, as many, have followed this since it happened. I think we've beat a number of things to death. Forgive my ignorance of the boat - I assume the galley had doors to the dive deck - would that be a correct assumption?

The salon to back deck opening doesn't have a door. Nor is there a door between the berthing area and the salon (stairs yes, door no)

 

[KevinNM]

Basically, if you don't collect all the evidence that might help a criminal investigation up front even if it's obvious that it has to be an accident it won't be available if it later turns out that it was a criminal act.

My brother-in-law had a nephew who the Baltimore Police Department decided died of natural causes in his sleep. As often happens to healthy 20some year old guys with no know issues, who apparently often get found dead with all their expensive stuff missing from their apartment in Baltimore. So they didn't do anything to collect evidence or protect the scene or trace his movements or basically any sort of basic investigation. Months later the medical examiner's blood tests showed a lethal level of a drug most commonly used as a date-rape drug...

 

[dmaziuk]

Doesn't have to be during charging at all.

A small amount of seawater in the battery compartment of a lithium ion light or scooter is very likely to short the battery and lead to a fire.

As described in #765

 

[bigDave]

I'll agree that it the entire boat end-to-end was in flames before anyone woke up neither of these would have likely changed the outcome, but I will still argue that running across 10 feet of burning deck into the ocean from the engine room door is a lot easier to survive than emerging into the furnace that was the salon and trying to make it to the ocean. And if you could evacuate horizontally into the engine room that would be possible.

Not so easy if you are already breathing smoke and maybe blinded by fumes. Keep in mind there is a ventilation system in the bunk room - depending on the location of its intake, it could have been pumping smoke into the bunk room.

Also keep in mind that "cheap" technology solutions become a lot more expensive when they are required safety systems which require certification and routine testing. Plus hardening to withstand a salt air environment, which tries to eat up pretty much everything.

 

[benha]

The salon to back deck opening doesn't have a door. Nor is there a door between the berthing area and the salon (stairs yes, door no)

This is not, strictly speaking, true. The Conception and her sister ship the Vision do have pocket doors at the top of the set of stairs leading from the dive deck to the salon. These doors are closed when the boats are docked and locked with nobody aboard. In over 15 trips on the Vision - most of them with Finstad's Worldwide Diving Adventures - I've never seen them closed at a mooring or during operations, even when the weather is really miserable.

The emergency egress from the bunk room comes up at the aft end of the salon, right where those always-open doors are. That exit is as close to being "outside" as you can get without needing to make it sealed enough to be on the weather deck. The primary entrance to the bunk room is at the forward end of the salon, to the starboard of the galley.

If the main deck of the boat were fully involved in flame, neither exit would allow for a safe egress from the vessel. I suppose you could call this a design flaw, but realistically you can't address every contingency. This boat clearly went from zero to fully involved in a time period that would be beyond all but the most extreme safety planner's expectations.

As I've pondered what would have made a difference - which I've spent a lot of time doing over the past few days given the number of nights I've spent in those bunks - I think about the only way you would have had a chance is if there were a way to get through the hull directly from the bunk room without going up to the main deck. That's a pretty impractical way to construct an emergency exit due to the sealing that would be required, but it would allow a direct exit in the event of a fire. Given it's a plywood hull without glass, even an axe might have made a difference, allowing them to create an opening and get outside, though that'd take a lot of time when there wasn't much to be had.

My money is on the lithium battery theory for how this fire would have started. It's the kind of ignition source that would be most likely to kick off when virtually no activity was going on aboard the vessel, and it gets hot enough fast enough to involve the whole boat as quickly as appears to have been the case.

Could be something else, of course, but that seems the most likely cause to me.

As a final note, I think the emergency exit that's there is really more useful in the event of a sinking event than a fire. If the boat is going down by the bow, the primary exit could be submerged and you head up through the aft one. In a fire it would be a real trick to get everyone out through that back exit with smoke and flame clouding the air.

-Ben

 

[ckubrick2]

I, as many, have followed this since it happened. I think we've beat a number of things to death. Forgive my ignorance of the boat - I assume the galley had doors to the dive deck - would that be a correct assumption? For those who dove the boat this time of year were those doors usually left open or closed? Regardless of how combustion starts ventilation plays a key role in how it moves from being a room and contents fire to fully developed. Who knows - maybe the suggestion that comes from this is that all hatches/doors are secured in vessels of similar classification and a door is added for the below deck areas to stop the spread. I'm not a mariner but I am a firefighter from time to time in my town. Closed doors save lives.

According to the interview of good samaritan that was there in the other boat (Boat Owner Recalls Dramatic Rescue of Crew from Burning Dive Boat)

• crew members said they tried to get to passengers but they couldn't. When they opened the galley door there was no way to get to the emergency hatch that opens to the galley because of the flames. (Minute 1:45 of the linked video)