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I have reconstruted a time line of the events surrounding this dive from both the report in the Sun Sentinel and the account given by the survivor Mr. Roth. 1:00 PM Boat leaves dock. --- Sun Sentinel 1:30 PM divers enter water --- Sun Sentinel "At this time Mike signaled to Andre that he was at his bottom mix turn limit. (Approximately 15 minutes into the dive.) We then assumed our ascent positions ." ----Roth's account 1:45 to 1:50 Divers terminate dive.---- Roth's account The plan was for a 250 fsw dive for 20 minutes bottom time, 68 Minutes decompression for a total run time of 99 minutes surface to surface. ---Roth's account 3:00 or so the divers should have been at the surface. --- Roth's account (i.e 1:50 + 68 minutes) "Gear preparation was completed aboard the Minnow without problem, followed by a dive briefing. The brief consisted of the dive plan, surface and decompression plan, and emergency procedures. Every member of the team fully understood the plan and executed it correctly. " -Roth's account "There was only about 90 minutes of daylight left, so I suggested we request a USCG helicopter and then helped Captain Cooke organize a search pattern to find the lost divers. " -----Roth's account According to the above then at aboutÂ… 4:00 to 4:30 the Coast Guard are called. (this can be confirmed from the Palm Beach CG dispatcher logs and no doubt will be at the administrative hearing which will follow) 5:30 to 6:00 PM it gets dark. - A known fact If these numbers are correct, and there is no reason to believe otherwise the captain, may have waited up to an hour before calling the coast guard to help in the search. If the socalled dive plan was followed and a socalled safety diver was available this diver would have checked to see what was under the lift bag and found out that only Roth was there. Didn't it seem strange that the divers (the charter captain did not know that only Roth was below the lift bag) were decoing for 125 minutes when the plan was "a total run time of 99 minutes surface to surface". This dive went out of control and nobody topsides knew about it and they were obviously not briefed about what to do if there was a problem and there obviously was no means established to communicate with the divers during their decompression. The charter captain will argue that since the divers pulled no surface float he assumed Roth's lift bag marked the decompressing divers and he clearly followed Roth during his extended decompression. . Someone will have to answer as to why the long wait before calling for help and WHY (since there was a safety diver on board .. Elkin's wife) did this diver not attempt to establish contact with the decompressing divers when the dive duration ran over and life bags started appearing in separated locations. "Later I heard a boat engine revving at high RPM. I hoped the others had surfaced and were heading for the beach." -- Roth's account -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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