My experience was a very long time ago. Mid 1970s , North Sea, Egypt, Middle East, Indonesia. Companies were Solus Schall, & Comex. I expect everything to be very different nowadays.
My expertise, I'm a graduate Engineer, Non Destructive Testing & all forms of Oil Rig Inspection. Lloyds & DNV certified. U/W welding and welding inspection. Had to also fill in for construction diving to build up muscles ; )
I came to this forum hoping to hear from some ex Comex divers I was working with, out of Singapore. Joe Sukumaran, Tom Nalpon, Jhonny Goh, Lim Hock Huat.....more names when I recall them.
An incident I will never forget.
We were finishing the NDT inspection of about 20 production platforms out of Ras Shukheir, Egypt. The last platform had one satellite structure to be inspected, a 4 legged support for the flare stack. It was the last day of the contract and the next day a penalty clause would kick in. The company would lose money and the divers would lose bonus.
All we had to do was a video inspection of the whole structure. Simple n straightforward. Max depth 70m. which to Divers seasoned on air would not be too duly affected by narcosis. A quick bounce and done. Money in the bank.
The dive boat could not tie up to the structure as it was not designed for a large vessel to tie up plus the flare was too hot to remain under. We ran the dive from the walkway. Standby divers at sea level in Zodiacs, helpers on the walkway 20m above and at sea level to handle the Hydro Products CCTV cable and coms cable to diver. Accompanying diver to 60m. All divers on SCUBA as air hoses could not reach.
It would have been a 20min bottom time dive. We were prepared to carry out surface decompression.
Descent went well, video recorded of the structure on the way down to the bottom. Suddenly, there was a high pitched sound from the coms and a faint muffled call was heard. Coms was then lost.
The standby divers were immediately ordered to assist.
The standby divers ordered but they could not hear due to the noise from the flare stack. The Flare stack makes a roaring sound as the gas burns off and the gas traveling through the overhead pipes whistle and roar all the time. Precious minutes were lost before the standby divers could got in.
All this while the helpers were slowly pulling in on the air hose and CCTV cable.
By the time the Standby was at 30m he met with the support diver and they both saw the CCTV & coms cable coming up. Only the Hydroproducts CCTV cam was on the end, No Diver. The support diver had to continue surfacing and the standby diver went to the bottom and could not find anyone. The bottom around the structure legs was no more than 15m square. Vis 30m but getting dark, a quick swim around produced no results. The Standby diver returned to surface.
On analysis, after going through the video, we found everything normal, the diver was communicating normally, no signs of narcosis, all the way to the bottom. The recording showed the support diver, the growth at the legs all the way to the bottom, the under scouring at the bottom level and even several Turkey Fish (large Lion fish) Then the high pitched sound and a muffled "Help Me" was heard before all sound went dead. The camera showed the seabed for a while then pointed to the bottom as it was being hauled up.
On retrospect, what we should have done, was not the hurry the dive, run the dive on mixed gas as it was on the air limit of 70m. Used a smaller support vessel so that it could tie up at sea level, closer to divers. This would have taken another 2 days of preparation and we would have been penalized.
All for the sake of money, we cut corners, something we had usually done and got away with, but this time we lost a diver. He was never found.
It was speculated then that the diver was stung by a Turkey Fish, which is probably as dangerous as any Lion Fish, and somehow the camera cable got unhooked and got separated from the diver, possibly when he was being hauled up or was not hooked on at all. We will never know.
Sad but true even nowadays. We take shortcuts risking the lives of many for the sake of money.
The lost Diver's name was David Lee an ex Royal Navy Clearance Diver 1, the Dive Manager of the team. I was the NDT supervisor and dive supervisor on that dive.
Royal Navy Clearance Divers' Motto - " No Dive too Deep, No Muff too Tuff " The RN Clearance Divers are the Royal Navy's equivalent of the US Navy Seals.
On a lighter note.
One French diver we were in sat with did his big business in the toilet into a plastic bag. Probably thought it would be funny and sealed the bag. Put the bag into the transfer port and asked the Caisson Master or otherwise the guy in charge of the transfer ports, to clear his bag. So it went from 100m to the sea level in 30 secs. and of course the bag blew up and there was shit everywhere, inside the port, out the hoses & pipes, into the air.
Of course the frog(frenchman) claimed innocence but he was immediately decompressed and sent off on the next heli.
Well, it was funny at the time, for me anyway. The french language sounds very sexy when you don't understand it, especially the swear words. Besides we cannot smell anything from inside the chamber.
