Bailout bottle – do not use for cleaning a hull. Photo: www.scubadiving.com
Using a bail-out bottle to power hull cleaning equipment is a bad idea, in this case it resulted in tragedy. According to a safety alert issued by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers a diver died when his main air supply failed while he was powering a ‘brush cart’ with his bailout bottle.
Says OGP: “A routine surface supplied diving operation was undertaken to clean marine growth from a vessel hull. This involved using a hull cleaning device with rotating brushes, termed a brush cart, and this also required a diver to guide and operate it.
“The brush cart contained diver operated tooling that was actuated by an air driven piston. Standard company practice was to use the suit inflation take off from the diving mask for this purpose.
Prior to this dive the diving mask was changed to a model that did not contain a suit inflation take off capability.
A decision was made to connect the diver’s emergency gas supply line (Bailout) directly to the brush cart tooling. This resulted in the diver having no personal emergency gas supply.
During the dive the diver’s gas supply line (umbilical) was caught in the wheels of the brushcart and the diver experienced a reduction in breathing gas. The diver, having no emergency gas supply, removed his mask, immediately losing communication to the surface team and was observed in distress at the surface.
The surface team was composed of a radio operator (a diver) and a tender for the diver (non diver) and a diving supervisor who was not on the site at this time. Continue reading »
Single fault failures should not be possible in safety critical systems. However, a recent incident in which dynamic positioning failed while divers were underwater show that they can and do happen in ways that, with 20/20 hindsight, are not surprising.