Fire on safari boat Suzana in Egypt (Red Sea Aggressor)

[Schwob]

Hi Ivy I just read your message on Scuba board regarding Aggressor and am
So sorry to hear about the sad loss of your friend. I would like to give you some inside information on Aggressors dealings and would appreciate it if you could get in touch with me confidentially. My email ID is concerneddiver1947@gmail.com. I have details that will throw a lot of light on
Aggressors disrespect on safety or life. Please do get in touch with me.

Is there a reason you are double posting many hours apart and not sharing the inside information with all of us?
Fire on safari boat Suzana in Egypt (Red Sea Aggressor)

 

[chillyinCanada]

No worries and thank you for the kid gloves. I actually agree with your statemenet here.

What I was objecting to were statemnets of certainity that "the crew knew about the Conception" and then castigating them for inaction. Absent direct evidence, we don't KNOW what they knew or didn't know. Fine line between "should have known" and "they knew."

Regardless, whether they knew or not, even if they did know, it's a human factor, along the lines of our oft mentioned "normalization of deviance".

 

[ReefHound]

You may want them to be, but no court in the world will find them so. Regardless of how much you want it.

The dive community found that out with the Belize tragedy where the Wave Dancer capsized killing 20 divers. Peter Hughes, while operating a worldwide fleet, had set up each boat as a separate corporation and the rest of the fleet was untouchable. Insurance on the Wave Dancer paid the limit of $5M. $1M of that went to salvage operations leaving $4M for the divers (and lawyers).

I'll bet it's 10x harder to get a payout in Egypt than Belize.

 

[DavidFL]

Hmmmm. The only Aggressor boat that can be sued in a US court. Imagine that.

Hmmm...a cynic. Imagine that.

 

[Wookie]

Hmmm...a cynic. Imagine that.

Yes

 

[dwerner]

Wow, so sorry to hear this bad news, I can’t imagine how you must be feeling... We are still reeling in our tight knit dive group in California. I was very recently diving the Red Sea on the My Heaven Saphire in October 2019. I talked with the crew and they were definitely aware of the Conception Fire and had heard about it from other neighboring liveaboards. One of the first things our group did when we boarded was to figure out how to escape if there was a fire since we were all hyper-aware. Once again, really sorry to hear what you went thru.

 

[drjtprice]

Too bad DEMA is in Florida and not LA. A protest, even a loan picketer, might get the attention of the news in LA because of the Conception fire and the LA Times is pretty good (YMMV). The Miami papers can be good as well but the show is in Orlando, and FL has not had its own tragedy. Yes, Aggressor might try to shut a protest down, but if you are picketing in a public space it is freedom of speech.

 

[drjtprice]

One way of getting higher ranking in Google is to make a Wikipedia entry. Google Conception fire and the Wikipedia page is one of the first to come up.

 

[drjtprice]

Remember, Aggressor Fleet is the franchise issuer and marketing/booking arm and 800 lb gorilla in liveaboard diving. They do not tell their franchise holders how to operate. It is done, but only rarely, that Aggressor Fleet will pull a franchise out from under a boat owner, so yes, while they might have sent around a list of safety concerns regarding the Conception fire, they are not the operations arm of franchised liveaboards, and there have been no conclusions in the Conception fire anyway.

Aggressor looks bad here, but looking at it from their side, they licensed another boat owner to use their name only.

I would have expected Aggressor to then make at least a small deal out of saying that the boat was a franchise, they were not operating according to the guidelines set out by the Aggressor Fleet as demonstrated by the arrests, etc. This is not the sort of problem that will just quietly stay swept under the rug.

 

[scubaozy]

I was very recently diving the Red Sea on the My Heaven Saphire in October 2019. I talked with the crew and they were definitely aware of the Conception Fire and had heard about it from other neighboring liveaboards.

Interesting you mention Divers Heaven. Did you know that "Heaven One" was burned completely and sunk in 2003 and "Heaven Diamond" in 2008 had the same fate? No fatalities, only 1 person injured in 2008.