This CO2 Scrubber Killed Half the Crew

during a routine dive off Key West Florida a fourman submersible gets entangled in the wreckage of a sunken warship they can't free themselves and Rescuers need to get to the men before their life support systems run [Music] out it's the 17th of June 1973 and crew of the Johnson cink are getting ready to make a dive 50 nautical miles off Key West in Florida they're diving to the wreck of the USS Fred T Berry to retrieve a fish trap designed to help scientists monitor fish populations the berry was a US Navy destroyer commissioned right at the end of World War II after it finished service in 1971 it was scuttled in this location of Key West to create an artificial Reef for marine Wildlife one of the men on board the research ship Robert Meek is an ethologist or fish biologist he's studying the fish who inhabit the rec of the berry the Johnson cink is a specialist deep sea scientific research submersible it's licensed to take people and research equipment to a maximum depth of 305 M it was built 2 years earlier and is designed to carry up to five crew the crew are split between two separate compartments the Pilot's compartment is an acrylic sphere 1.5 m in diameter and approximately 10 cm thick which gives a panoramic view during the dive during the dive the Pilot's compartment stays at the same air pressure as the surface the rear compartment is a diving compartment that holds up to three divers the dive compartment is designed for lockout diving at depth it's a 2 and 1/2 M long aluminium cylinder 1.5 m in diameter with hemispheres welded to each end it's similar to what ocean Gates Titan looks like except there is a hatch at the bottom for divers to climb out and into the ocean like a dive Bell the divver compartment can be pressurized to the same pressure of the depth of the ocean which allows the divers to leave through this hatch and conduct their dive the two compartments are not designed for the crew to move between them they're confined to either the Pilot's compartment or the diver's lockout compartment immediately behind the divver compartment is another sphere to hold diving gas the gas in the cylinder is 86.5% helium and 13.5% oxygen that cylinder can hold up to 130 bar of pressure but I'm not sure if it's full at the time of the dive and I don't know the capacity of the cylinder the ceilings designer and Builder was Edwin Albert Link and he's on board the ceiling support vessel the research ship sea diver the SE diver has transported the ceiling from Key West to the wreck of the berry through the course of the morning the crew members on the research ship will oversee the ceiling dive and although it seems like there's no formalized command structure Edwin link is effectively in command of the dive operation on board the cink are the vessel's pilot archal mensy and the scientist Robert Meek in the Pilot's compartment two passengers Albert Stover and Edwin Clayton link are in the dive compartments Edwin Clayton link is the son of Edwin Albert Link and he's known as Clayton although these two are in the dive compartment they aren't planning to dive and so like the pilots compartment the dive compartment will be sealed and kept at the same pressure as the surface it won't be pressurized to make a lockout dive this is a routine dive and according to the US Coast Guard investigation into the dive it's the 130th dive the seink will make this Coast Guard report contains detailed information about the dive and is where I gathered most of the information for this account before the men depart Everyone Gets Ready the Coast Guard report gives me the impression they're quite casual about safety in the dive compartment Stover and Clayton link who are there as research observers are only dressed in shorts and t-shirts it's really cold at the planned dive depth and their choice of clothing doesn't take into account any delays or difficulty Meek who will be in the Pilot's compartment warns them but they don't change their clothes the pre-launch safety check of the ceil link is completed by a training pilot instead of by menes he discovers a potential problem the training pilot finds that one of the two fans in the CO2 scrubber units in the Pilot's compartment is not working the CO2 scrubber unit is there to absorb excess carbon dioxide and keep the air in the Pilot's compartment safe to breathe it'll work with only one fan but if the second fan stops working then no backup instead of fixing the faulty fan the training pilot casually mentions the problem to men's when he's getting into the vessel for the dive the Expedition proceeds without a backup fan the vessel is hoisted into the sea and at 0836 the ceiling submerges below the waterline it heads straight down and 9 minutes later the four men are 104 M deep at the ocean floor the pilot Menses switches off the engine so he can estimate underwater current conditions by observing how much the sea link drifts in the water he estimates drift is about 0.4 knots and visibility is poor this is fairly normal 100 m deep in this area of Key West before he sets off he trims The Vessel to have a slightly negative buoyancy meaning it'll sink slightly in the water he does this to have better control over the craft and to stop it from floating upward and touching any when they're nearer the sunken warship then he heads off towards the wreck of the Berry at 0904 the crew takes sight of the Berry's anchor chain as they approach the ship they're on the north side of the berry they have to ascend and pass over the ship to get to the other side where the fish traps located they pass over the berry and then men's drops the ceiling back to the ocean floor just past the fish trap he turns around and gets ready to approach the Trap the fish traps positioned 4.5 M away from the berry it's a good place to trap fish but they need to be careful while they're so close to the Shipwreck he approaches the Trap slowly and carefully by manipulating his side Motors rear Motors and both bowel thrusters they only have to travel 12 M to reach the Trap which takes a few moments as they're approaching men smells burning in the Pilot's compartment and thinks there might be an electrical fault they open the electrical covers to investigate but don't find a problem I imagine the problem distracts menies and probably makes him worry but they can't find the fault they continue on and arrive at the Trap all they need to do is pick it up and take it to the surface it should be a simple procedure on the front of the ceil link is a 2.5 M arm with a fork at the end to pick up the Trap the fork is pushed onto the fish trap's rope which is a line with two flotation balls that hold the line up when the fork on the arm engages with the line a mousing device locks the line in place like snapping a carabina onto a rope the flotation balls prevent the line from dropping out of the fork and the pickup procedure is complete menes tries to pick up the Trap he gets the retrieving line into the fork but the mousing device fails and the line comes back out he tries again the arm is fixed to the ceiling it's not a robotic arm in order to pick up the line the pilot men's must maneuver the ceiling into position he backs up the cink a short distance to try again he gets the line into the fork and again the mousing device fails he backs up and tries again again the equipment fails with three failed attempts the crew decide it's not going to work and they abort the mission I assume they plan to return to the surface get the passing device on the arm fixed and then return to try again while he's backing the seink away from the trap meny lets the vessel's bow drop and tilt slightly to Port at around 5 to 10° the pivot point is in the center of the submersible as men's dips the bow to Port the stern Rises equally to starboard next men's backs the ceiling further away from the trap so they can get far enough away from the berry to be able to head up to to the surface they've been on the ocean floor for an hour now and the time is around 0945 as men's backs the ceiling up still tilted at a slight angle it stops with a sudden jerk the vessel is stuck on a cable from a flag pole on the sunken ship but men's can't see that it's caught by a hook on the starboard side of the ceiling it's the same type of hook they're using to try and catch the fish basket but this one works it's also caught underneath some other parts of the ceiling that protrude on the starboard side men's can't see because his vision of this area is obstructed by an air conditioning unit the vision from the Pilot's bubble is very good except for this one particular blind spot he moves the vessel around to try and get them out but they can't escape they can move around 6 m in any direction or rotate through an Mark of around 270° but that's it they're stuck 110 M deep with no obvious means of escape the four men in the ceiling begin to assess the situation they're in to work out what they can do communication between the Pilot's compartment and the dive compartment goes through an intercom system men's and meek in the pilot compartment have to switch between listen mode and talk mode when they're communicating with the two two men in the dive compartment Stover and Clayton link just talk or listen over the intercom without having to flip a switch the dive compartment line is constantly open so the pilots can monitor the diver's compartments they can also see each other through a port hole on the front of the dive compartment men's trying some more Maneuvers to free the ceiling but they think they'll just tangle themselves up more and so they decide to stop at 0953 mens's calls the sea diver using an underwater telephone phone to tell the dive command crew about the situation after they finished talking to the men on the ceil link the command crew on the sea diver radio the Coast Guard to relay the situation and asked them to send Navy divers from looking at the Coast Guard report it seems that neither the Coast Guard nor the crew of the sea diver think the danger is immediate a request for divers may sound fairly drastic but perhaps no one is worried because they think they have plenty of time to make a rescue either with divers or through a different means they expect the life support system on the ceiling to keep the men alive for long enough for them to plan and execute a rescue they just have to find a way to rescue The Vessel they make the call to the Coast Guard at 105 the information is passed up through the Coast Guard's chain of command and onto the US Navy the Navy decid to dispatch the submarine rescue ship USS tringa from Key West to the scene this ship has Di div on board as well as other diving support equipment and is the right ship to perform this kind of rescue the ship's departure is set for 1500 while the Coast Guard and the Navy start coordinating a rescue there's a discussion between the dive command crew on the sea diver and the men in the ceil link about the possibility of doing a lockout dive the proposed plan is that one man exits the dive compartment into the sea to untangle the ceiling from the steel cable this is a simple plan and might sound like an obvious and easy solution but unfortunately things aren't simple in lockout diving the dive compartment has two hatches one that opens into the dive compartment and one that opens outwards into the sea in order to open the hatch to make a lockout dive they need to increase the pressure inside the compartment until it's equal to the water pressure if the pressure isn't equalized then the outer hatch won't open they have compressed gas in the gas supply cylinder they could use that gas to equalize the chamber's pressure but that's a gamble the increase in pressure will create an increase in the oxygen partial pressure in the dive compartment at the depth of 110 M the surrounding pressure is 12 atmospheres the 13.5% oxygen will have a partial pressure of 1.62 the men would have to breathe oxygen at this elevated partial pressure in in the dive compartment air we breathe above the waterline has 0.2 partial pressure of oxygen the maximum level we can tolerate is 1.6 for a short period of Time Dr Youngblood an expert on diving physiology who's on board the support vessel sea diver estimates that anything over 2 hours at that partial pressure could be fatal he advises against the attempt if the men make a dive but find they can't untangle vessel and they have to wait in the dive compartment The Rescuers on the surface will only have 2 hours to get them out shortly after they decide not to try a lockout dive at around 10:30 manes detects a CO2 buildup in the Pilot's compartment he informs the SE diver and then checks the CO2 scrubber what he finds is that the one fan motor that was working has now stopped the CO2 scrubber works by blowing air through a canister containing a substance called barel lime barel lime absorbs CO2 and the fan simply moves the air through the barel lime to encourage it to absorb CO2 without a fan it won't work and CO2 levels will rise to toxic levels exposure to high levels of carbon dioxide can be fatal quite quickly but Menses has an idea he takes off his shirt and empties the barrel Li from the scrubber into his shirt then he holds his barel filled shirt in front of the air conditioning fans in the Pilot's compartment it works this system creates an artificial CO2 scrubber to replace the one they've lost without this improvised fix levels of CO2 would rise to toxic and then deadly levels if CO2 levels do rise there's an emergency oxygen supply that can be breathed through an oxygen mask the supply is limited though and they don't want to end up relying on it it sounds from the report like they only have a few hours of air in the Pilot's compartment but for now things are okay at 11:3 men reports to the sea diver that the CO2 levels in the Pilot's compartment are dropping they swap men's t-shirt for a spare canister of barel lime to create a more permanent solution and meny saves the barrel lime from the original canister for later in case they need it efforts on the surface start to ramp up at around midday a small boat from the sea diver tries to get a boy line down to the ceil link the idea is that when the Navy divers arrive they'll be able to use the line to descend directly to the stricken vessel otherwise they'll have to position the trer as accurately as they can and then lower the divers down which is not an easy task in over 100 m of water there is a boy line that marks the berry but it doesn't descend to the ceiling they know the approximate position of the berry and they know the ceilings on the south side of it but getting an accurate fix is hard and they need an accurate fix the divers from the trer will use surface supplied gas that means they have a long hose that descends with them if they descend in the wrong location they'll have to drag 100 m of hose through the water or worse if they land on the berry they could snag their own supply lines on the ship the sea diver's boat tries to get a line down but the line that marks the berry is in the way while this is underway Navy commanders in Key West called the US Navy submarine Development Group in San Diego California to ask for help they prepare a roving diving bell with support personel and equipment to be delivered by air to Key West the diving bell offers an alternative if divers on the trer can't manage to rescue The Vessel just before the diving bell leaves California the USS trer arrives on the scene Dr Youngblood and the support crew on board the dive support fessal sea diver calculate how long the CO2 scrubbers in the sea link will last they need to last as long as it takes for the sea link to be rescued based on an assumption that the temperatures in the vessel will remain at 21° C they calculate that the Pilot's compartment will have 42 hours and the dive compartment will have 61 hours so while the situation is urgent at least they have plenty of of time it's now 16:15 and the seink has been stuck on the seabed for 6 and 1/2 hours since the trer arrived it's been trying to accurately position itself over the ceiling they've tried to determine the exact location of the submersible by lowering lights into the water for men's to see and men's blinks the ceilings lights for the trer to see they do manage to sight each other but according to the Coast Guard report they can't get an exact location so they have to estimate as accurately as they can the trer begins maneuvering to set a fourpoint Ming over the ceiling's position to send divers down they need the stability of a fourpoint Ming but it takes time to set by 2015 the trinker completes its Ming within 10 m of the boy line marking the berry the hope is that the positioning is accurate and the divers will descend close enough to the ceiling while the trer dive is prepared to go in the water the CO2 scrubbers in the ceiling's dive compartment start to malfunction temperatures have dropped inside the compartment at lower temperatures the ability for the chemical barel lime to absorb CO2 diminishes significantly the temperature in the aluminium dive compartment is dropping quicker than the Pilot's acrylic compartment according to the Coast Guard report temperatures in the dive compartment could be as low as 7° C the men dressed in shorts and t-shirts are suffering in the cold and the barel lime is quickly losing effectiveness at the surface they've calculated the Air Supply based on temperatures of 21° C when the barel lime stops working carbon dioxide in the ceiling will become toxic they'll have to switch to using the mask supplied oxygen which comes from a high pressure cylinder although it isn't clear from the Coast Guard reports exactly how much oxygen there is this is a limited Supply at around 2200 Stover and Clayton report that the barel LI in their CO2 scrubber has lost all Effectiveness and at 2225 they switch to using the oxygen MKS according to the Coast Guard report as the CO2 levels in the dive compartment rise the internal pressure in the dive compartment Also Rises to around two atmospheres the pressure continues to rise until it reaches three atmospheres by 2245 the men are breathing oxygen from a pressurized cylinder as the gas moves from a high press cylinder into the dive compartment the pressure in the dive compartment increases two hard hat divers from the trer start their 110 M descent to try and locate the men from a depth of 96 M they spot the ceil link they can see it underwater from the side of the berry and it's snagged on something they're close enough to see The Vessel but they can't can't get to it their way is obstructed by the wreck of the berry what looks like a radar dish is in their way along with other obstructions they can't get through the obstructions with their surface Supply gas lines so they can't get to the men to free them going any further would mean taking a big risk of entangling themselves they abort dive and return to the surface as the tringas divers Ascend slowly doing decompression stops Personnel on board the SE diver support vessel revisit the possibility of a lockout dive it's a fleeting discussion Stover and Clayton in the divver compartment don't want to risk leaving the sea link the crew on the sea diver accepts their decision at 2311 the oxygen supply is exhausted in the divver compartment Stover and Clayton switch to the helium and oxygen gas supply in the rear of the vessel while the tringas divers return slowly to the surface the ship tries to to reposition itself for Clear access on the next dive down in the ceiling the pressure in the dive compartment continues to rise it reaches 10 atmospheres at midnight and at 0015 the hatch pops open as it reaches the equivalent of the 12 atmospheres in the surrounding water pressure again the team discussed doing a lockout dive the Coast Guard report doesn't give a great deal of information about this conversation but I imagine the command crew of the sea diver are becoming quite desper desate now maybe they're trying to convince Stover and Clayton to make the dive maybe Edwin link thinks it's the only hope for his son and Stover they're on a dwindling supply of oxygen rich gas and once that runs out the CO2 levels will rise they raised the idea of a lockout dive with the two men in the divver compartment but according to the Coast Guard report they say they're too cold to try again the command crew on the sea diver accept the decision of the two men in the ceil link and hope that a diving rescue from the trer will work at 0030 communications go quiet with the men in the dive compartment while menes tries to help the trer locate itself directly above him he's looking at lights suspended beneath the trer to Aid their positioning it's not clear what's known about the men in the dive compartment there's no contact with them after 0030 but we don't know if that's because they're unconscious or if the coms stop working it's quite likely that the two men slowly become incapacitated and aren't able to respond to any attempt to reach them we don't know at what point their oxygen levels drop to the point that they lose Consciousness it seems that they simply just go quiet at 0112 on the 18th Menses reports to the surface that Stover and Clayton link are both suffering convulsions the two men are now suffering from carbon dioxide poisoning there's a slim chance they can still be saved if the divers from tringa get to them quickly Edwin link hears the news that his son is in the process of dying at the bottom of the sea 100 M below him attention now shifts to the two men in the Pilot's compartment their acrylic bubble is better insulated than the diver's compartment but it's getting colder eventually the barel lime in their CO2 scrubber will stop working then manes and meek will have to switch to their emergency oxygen supply as well 13 minutes pass and at 0135 the divers from the trer start their second dive down to the ceil link it takes them 8 minutes to reach the bottom they report to menes that they've completed their descent men scans the ocean floor for the diver's lights you have to imagine a sense of panic Rising for men's and meek in the Pilot's compartments in the compartment behind them their colleagues are convulsing I'm sure they're concerned not only for Stoker and Clayton but also starting to think about the same fate for themselves mensies must be hoping the divers have landed close enough to rescue the seink they might even save the men in the dive compartment if they get them to the surface quickly he looks but he can't see their lights once again the divers have landed on the wrong side of the berry and they have to the dive sometime during the second dive the roving dive Bell arrives it's been flown from California to Key West loaded onto a support vessel and sailed to the location it's transferred to the trer at 0245 on the 18th of June over the next few hours the dive Bell is readied and an attempt is made to dive to the ceil link at 0605 two divers are in the Bell they descend to 85 m in the bell and then begin their dive using the Bell as a staging point one diver exits the Bell he's immediately pulled into a strong current the current's so strong that he becomes fouled in his umbilical and can't descend any further it takes him 15 minutes to untangle himself and return to the Bell they abort the attempt and bring the Bell to the surface the USS amberjack arrives at the location Rescuers then check the charts and discover the current is tidal with the next slack tide at around 1,200 there's another delay of a few hours at 0951 they send the Bell back down with lights attached and no divers so they can establish the right location for the next dive when they lower the Bell the current pushes it into the Shipwreck and gets stuck they can't lower or raise it any further the rescue team regroup and formulate a different plan at 12:40 a submersible vessel called the Perry Cub Marine which arrived on board the USS amberjack is sent down to locate the cink it has to return to the surface an hour and a half later because its sonar isn't working it doesn't locate the seink which has now been trapped for 30 hours the two men in the divver compartment Stover and Clayton link have now been unresponsive for over 13 hours just before the Perry cup Marine surfaces the Salvage vessel motor vessel AB wood 2 arrives on the sea just as the wood arrives the barrel lime in the pilots compartment is exhausted and the two men have to switch to using their oxygen masks they only have a few hours of oxygen left I'm sure menes and meek are hoping they don't have to face the same fate as Stover and clayon hopes are now turn towards the newly arrived ship the wood the ship has an underwater ROV with a camera that can be maneuvered by Personnel on the surface if they can get it down to the ceiling they might be able to work out what to do the wood launches its ROV about an hour and a half after it arrives just after, 1500 they manag to lower the camera on the ROV and for the first time they get a clear picture of the predicament the seink is in the crew on the wood can see the cable that snagged the seink on its stared side after Dr Youngblood and the crew on the sea diver miscalculated how quickly the barrel would deteriorate based on warmer temperatures he's now concerned that the the men in the Pilot's compartment are down to their last hours of breathable air the clock is ticking so the rescue party formulates a risky plan they bring the ROV back up to the surface attach a full prong grael to it with a 3 m length of Steel cable and lower it back down with the camera's guidance they managed to attach one hook of the grael onto the ceil link meny sees the hook go in and reports this back to the surf surf at 1641 at the surface the wood starts to winch in the ROV which now has the sealink attached at the end of the cable at first the submersible tilts at a steep angle held down at the rear starboard corner by the snap hook that's snagged on the Shipwreck then the snap hook that's holding the cable breaks open and the cable holding them on the ocean floor comes loose the ceiling Rises up to the surface as the line is reeled in just 12 minutes later at 1650 three the ceil link is finally lifted into fresh air menes and meek Will Survive much like the diver's compartment when menes and meek started breathing from the oxygen tank the pressure inside the Pilot's chamber started to rise after they surface they're transferred to the tringas recompression chamber their decompression begins at 1715 next Rescuers turn their attention to Stover and Clayton link there's still a slim chance they may be unconscious but alive they tow the sea link over to the sea diver and hoist it on board they can see Stover and Clayton link through the dive compartment viewports there are no signs of life and it's been a long time since there was any response from the men but they'll try to revive them anyway the sea diver goes alongside the trinker and takes a pressurized air hose from the ship they use this to vent the dive compartment while it's still pressurized they spray hot water over the sides of the El Al minum compartment to try and raise the internal temperature the hope is that if the men are still alive the air and warmth will revive them the two men are left inside the dive compartment as it fills with breathable air and warms up at 1845 the ROV and Camera are used to recover the foul diving bell menes and me complete their decompression at 1915 and are declared medically fit at 20 300 the diving bell is freed and lifted onto the trer everything is stowed and everyone is safe except for Stover and Clayton Link in the seink dive compartments 14 hours pass with no signs of life from the two men doctors on board declare both men dead the ventilation and hot water operation is stopped and they begin to depressurize the compartment to retrieve their bodies an autopsy shows that both men died from carbon oxide poisoning [Music]

Channel: Waterline Stories

Views: 58,612

Keywords: Waterline Stories, johnson sealink, submarine disaster

Id: BAql6-Gy7u8

Length: 31min 37sec (1897 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2024