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On 21 Dec 1994, HeimannJ wrote:

> Thanks for the info.  My request was not motivated by morbid interest in
> Roland's death so much as suspicion that some whitewashing had occured by
> Cis-Lunar.  If the system had allowed a diver to enter the water with O2
> turned off, as initial reports had described, then this would be a very
> serious design oversight.  

For what it's worth, I read over all of the information provided by Chris,
and all of it is consistent with what Bill Stone told me directly (I have read
the formal report compiled by Bill in conjunction with Bill Hamilton and
others, I have seen the data from the computer's "black box", and I have
spoken with others who were on the expedition).

The fact that the rig allows a user to manually shut-off the oxygen
injection system is by NO MEANS a design oversight.  In fact, the
LACK of this feature in other rebreather disigns is what I would consider
to be a serious design oversight.  If you talk to pilots or other people
who entrust their lives to machines, you'll find an almost universal
desire to be able to manually over-ride any malfunctioning automatic
system. If the solenoid valve somehow gets stuck in the "open" position
(as unlikely as this may be--hasn't yet happened, to my knowledge), the diver
needs a way to prevent massive O2-buildup in the loop (potentially fatal),
yet still be able to manually maintain the O2 setpoint.  The valve in
question on the Cis-Lunar rig allows users to do just that.  With any
manual over-ride system comes the responsibility on the part of the user
not to misuse it.  The fact that Ian disabled the O2 injection system
while out of the water indicates that he was following standard procedure.
The fact that he neglected to re-activate it upon entering the water again
*might* indicate inital symptoms of mental impairment from hypoglycemia. 
Nevertheless, in view of all available data, it appears as though the
o2-valve position was completely unrelated to his very unfortunate demise.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

Aloha,
Rich

deepreef@bi*.bi*.ha*.or*

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