What killed two coast guard divers??

NEWS STORY

Coast Guard divers' deaths explained

By GENE JOHNSON
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

One of two Coast Guard divers who mysteriously perished during a training dive in the Arctic last summer plunged toward the ocean floor in an uncontrolled descent, suffocated and developed lung trauma during a rapid rise to the surface, according to an autopsy report summary Tuesday.

This story is very mysterious imo. They were scheduled for a 20ft dive with one other diver. The 3rd diver cancelled right before the dive mysteriously. They went nearly 200ft. THATS TEN TIMES THE TEST DEPTH. Why did the coast guard let 180ft. of extra rope go deep and why couldnt they pull them up. They also died of lack of air when they probly had enough air to survive the 20min it took the coast guard to realize something was wrong.

The biggest question is what the heck pull them down to a depth in a matter of minutes that normally takes them approximately 20 min to reach???

Maybe something snagged their lines.

well whatever "snagged their lines" must have been huge and moving quick. That still does not explain why the coast guard didnt notice what was happening

Oh, I agree. There was negligence on the part of those who should have been monitoring the divers. The Arctic isn't exactly the safest place to dive. They should have been hypervigilant.

I had the thought when I initially read the story that a sub snagged them by accident. It would explain why the military has released so little information about the incident.

I'm very curious as to why the third diver aborted. Did he see or sense something amiss? We'll probably never know.

[edit on 11/22/2006 by Landis]

Who said they were snagged? ok the rapid depth change some one should of slammed on the ropes breaking system if it had one...

they didnt get taken by a whale or predator that i know about... or it could of been a smaller sub or a large sub fin...


but the US is being very cagey about this one.

Originally posted by D4rk Kn1ght

Who said they were snagged?

No one. I was speculating as to how they could have gone so deep so quickly.

This is an odd story, I was watching the news tonight and got a few details. The captain of the ship has been relieved of command and the ship is in port and has been stripped of it's diving gear.

The male divers descent was so rapid and forceful they couldn't hold the ropes to stop the descent.

Something very freaky is going on with this story. It will def be one to keep an eye on.

okay,
thanks mrwupy.

he got snagged and thats certain now... a descent like that is only ever forced.


I saw a fishing boat go down once when a sub snagged it.... like a horror film..

poor man.

But it means there is a sub lurking under a US ship in the ice.

fair lucky for the third diver
can anyone come up with some solid explanation?


so it was a sub then?

[edit on 22-11-2006 by PlayeR87]

In my opinion i think it was a sub or something black ops. They coast guard adn military are acting too funny about it to be something routine. Also the first thing that came to my mind about them decending soo rapidly was it was like they were just falling off a building or something. It fits teh description of a sudden depth change and the coast guard not being able to stop the rope cause of all the heavy gear. Idk how but just throwing that out there for discussion sake.

ok, so they knew it was a ten meter test dive. so they would of weighted and prepared accordingly.

They had rope watchers, so alls normal there so far..

and then they just 'dropped' 100 meters into the deep so fast that the rope could not be snagged and stopped..

and to get a lung injury from rising too fast... im sorry, if he had a chest wound it was from an impact. It is impossible for hi lung to suffer such catastrophic damage even if he swam straight up - he could of done it, walked to a hyperbaric chamber and decompressed for a few hours... its been done before and wil be done again in cases of emergency.

All this is speculation, but, as a civvie who loves a deep dive, I cannot see this happening unless he weighted for a thousand feet .... nope this stinks bad.


edited to add this : "We can get no word whatsoever, and that's tough," Hill's father, William Hill Jr., said. "We can't even get the death certificates."

That, makes it in my opinion a stitch up to cover what really happend.

[edit on 22-11-2006 by D4rk Kn1ght]

www.heraldtribune.com.../20061121/APN/611212050


It just does not add up at all...

A third person stops and aborts for no given reason? what did he see or feel or hear that was so bad that they didn't try and grab the other two right away?

The depth...thats whats puzzling me and their trying hard to give a reason for a what sounds like massive chest trauma... sow the idea and let it grow...

not nice - I lay a £ 10 bet on a sub strike.

The more I read the more it screams cover up. It has all the ingredients of a cover up. Remote location, mysterious death, oversight by superiors, taking way too long to determine cause of death, no death certificates, and no answers.

Ok where exactly was this because that could be critical?
If they were mapping they would have had sonar and maybe they found something they were not supposed to. Maybe this whole mission is not what it appeers.

The were test diving near alaska i believe. Again a shady part of the world where i didnt think they need deep sea divers????

Originally posted by factfinder38

maybe they found something they were not supposed to.

With the recent stalking of the Kitty Hawk by a Chinese sub it does make one wonder.

Is undertow a possibility? I've been in some pretty wicked riptides, but I've only encountered them at drop-offs, I have no idea if they exist in the same way in open water. I know there are currents in open water, but I have no idea what speeds they're capable of moving at, or whether they would be present in that specific location.

It could have been that they were doing some sort of maintenance on a vessel under the surface, but if that was the case I don't see why it would be so covered up, unless the vessel was classified or experimental. It was billed as a routine training dive, but obviously something happened that was not routine.

I wondered about this when the incident took place, and now I'm wondering that much more...

Thanks to Quicksilver for bringing this to us.

(Edit to add: they near a large quantity of ice, yes. I know that sea ice develops pits and cavernous holes over times, like swiss cheese. If the pressure changes, a great quantity of water can be forced through narrow passages, creating a high pressure jet.

Think about that rock in Hawaii that spits water into the sky like a geiser every time a wave comes.

If a wave, or even a wake, or a tidal surge, or something sent a large quantity of sea water against a hole in the ice, and pushed a whole lot more water like a missle out through another 'vent', under the water, would it create sufficient motive force to account for the rapid descent?

Or perhaps an icequake displaced a lot of water and they happened to be in the path as it went down?

Just thinking of alternate possibilities here - but of course that doesn't even begin to explain the behavior of the authorities...)



[edit on 23-11-2006 by WyrdeOne]

Hmm like your idea wyrde. That is a valid argument but i can fathom it pulling them 180ft. down. Im no expert or anything but i would imagine that the hole and caverns in the ice are large but i cant see them goin 100ft. or so in one constant direction.

Also they pull them up and it they were in a cavern or something they might have been snagged down there and not being able to be pulled up. I would like to see the suites they were wearing and see it their was any hole or tears in it from being snagged.

I am a PADI certified Open Water Diver (SCUBA diver).

This type of diving accident is common and not mysterious at all.

If the divers were diving in ice water they most likely were wearing dry suits.

The diver's buoyancy (whether they float or sink) is controlled by letting air from your breathing tank into the suit (to float) or letting air out of the suit (to sink).

If the valve that controls the air flow into the suit becomes stuck in the open position, the suit will over-inflate and rupture, causing the diver to immediately sink.

It will also cause all of the air in your tank to be dispersed into the water through the hole in your suit.

The proper procedure for this type of emergency is to release your weights and surface.

Why that didn't happen is the question. It is possible that the cold affected the diver so quickly that he did not have time to release his weights before being overcome.

As for both divers drowning, the divers may have been tied to the same safety line, so when one descended rapidly he dragged the other down with him. Anther explanation may be that the second diver attempted to rescue the first diver and ran out of air.

As for the safety line operator, it is not their job to stop a sudden descent. The line is there merely to help the divers find their way back to the opening in the ice should they become disorientated or lose their way.

As for the lung injuries, this is normal in cases of extremely rapid descent and ascent while breathing compressed air.

could water salinty be a factor if they had there ballast weights rigged for salt water and hit a bunch offresh water could that have made them crash dive.
i don't dive and i don't claim to be an expert . just a hypothesis i had