Tag Archives: boat fire

Final body found in California boat fire, Coast Guard issues lithium battery warning

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Divers on Wednesday recovered the remains of the final victim of a California dive boat fire that killed 34 people, as the U.S. Coast Guard issued a safety bulletin focusing on emergency escape routes, crew training and the charging of lithium-ion batteries.

The 75-foot (23-meter) Conception erupted in flames at about 3:15 a.m. on Sept. 2 and sank off Santa Cruz Island. Only five crew members escaped. Recovery of the final body had been delayed by weather conditions that complicated dive operations.

“The Conception Incident Unified Command is relieved to report that search and recovery efforts today were successful in locating the last missing victim,” The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said on Twitter.

“DNA testing is still being conducted to confirm identities of 7 of the 34 victims recovered,” the sheriff’s office said.

The Coast Guard did not identify a cause of the fire in its safety bulletin, and the incident remains under investigation by multiple local and federal law enforcement agencies.

But the document suggests that investigators may be looking into the possibility that the fire was ignited by passengers charging electronic devices in the below-decks sleeping quarters and could not escape once flames were raging in the cramped space.

“A Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) has been convened and will conduct a thorough and comprehensive marine casualty investigation to determine the causal factors that contributed to this tragic incident,” the bulletin states.

It adds: “The Coast Guard and the maritime industry do not have to delay until the MBI has completed their investigation before taking immediate and positive action.

EXTENSION CORDS

Five crew members who were above deck when the fire broke out survived by leaping overboard, telling investigators the fierce blaze made it impossible to rescue the passengers. The victims are believed to have died of smoke inhalation.

The Coast Guard bulletin recommends that vessel owners “immediately” review crew training, make sure emergency escape routes are clearly identified and unobstructed and that required fire-fighting and life-saving equipment are on board.

The document also urges crews to “reduce potential fire hazards and consider limiting the unsupervised charging of lithium-ion batteries and extensive use of power strips and extension cords.”

The Los Angeles Times has reported that investigators had identified possible safety lapses on the Conception, including the lack of a night watchman and failure to properly train the crew for emergencies.

Truth Aquatics has filed a petition in federal court in Los Angeles seeking to avoid liability by invoking a 19th-century law that has been used in such disasters as the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Sandra Maler)

California boat fire investigators interview captain, crew

FILE PHOTO: Rescue personnel return to shore with the victims of a pre-dawn fire that sank a commercial diving boat off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, U.S., September 2, 2019. REUTERS/Kyle Grillot/File Photo

By Dan Whitcomb and Maria Caspani

(Reuters) – Federal investigators on Wednesday interviewed the captain and crew of a dive boat that caught fire and sank off the California coast and they also met with families of 34 people killed in one of the state’s worst maritime disasters.

The badly burned bodies of all but one of the victims of the early Monday morning blaze aboard the 75-foot (23-meter) Conception have been recovered, officials said.

“I can’t imagine what the families are going through right now. It is horrific and they are devastated,” National Transportation Safety Board member Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference.

NTSB experts were spending their first full day of the investigation interviewing witnesses and mapping the wreckage of the Conception, which lay upside down some 65 feet (20 meters) below the surface, Homendy said.

A separate team inspected the Vision, a similar ship operated by the same dive boat company, Truth Aquatics. The Conception, which sank off Santa Cruz Island, will ultimately be raised from the ocean floor.

Truth Aquatics has suspended its dive expeditions during the investigation, which Homendy said would be “very lengthy, detailed and comprehensive.” The preliminary findings would be issued in 10 days and the final report would take up to 18 months to complete, Homendy said.

The only survivors of the accident, the captain and four crew members, were on deck when the flames erupted shortly after 3 a.m. Pacific time and were able to escape in an inflatable lifeboat, investigators said.

FILE PHOTO: Patricia Beitzinger and Neal Baltz are shown posing during a dive boat trip in Palau in this June 2019 photo. Courtesy Popi Heron/Handout via REUTERS

FILE PHOTO: Patricia Beitzinger and Neal Baltz are shown posing during a dive boat trip in Palau in this June 2019 photo. Courtesy Popi Heron/Handout via REUTERS

The 34 victims, including passengers and one crew member, were sleeping below deck. Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown has said the two exits, a stairway to the galley and an escape hatch may have both been blocked by fire.

Authorities were using a DNA analysis tool typically employed in war zones to identify the 33 recovered bodies.

More details emerged about the victims, who ranged in age from 17 to 60.

A family of five, a teacher and his daughter, and a diving instructor and marine biologist were among those believed to have died, according to local media.

Also killed were Patricia Beitzinger and Neal Baltz, a couple from Arizona who were passionate about diving and “died doing something that they loved together,” Baltz’s father John told local media.

Popi Heron, a 54-year-old finance professional from the San Francisco Bay area, had met them earlier this summer during a dive boat trip in the South Pacific and they had hit it off instantly, she said in a phone interview.

FILE PHOTO: Patricia Beitzinger and Neal Baltz are shown posing during a dive boat trip in Palau in this June 2019 photo. Courtesy Popi Heron/Handout via REUTERS

FILE PHOTO: Patricia Beitzinger and Neal Baltz are shown posing during a dive boat trip in Palau in this June 2019 photo. Courtesy Popi Heron/Handout via REUTERS

“Even though I didn’t know them very long, their humanity, their beauty as people, their passion as divers, they’re really just wonderful people and I am really going to miss them,” Heron said.

The couple had invited Heron to join them on the trip aboard the Conception, but she said she declined because of concerns about the water being cold.

Another victim was marine biologist Kristy Finstad, 41, who was leading the dive trip and co-owned Worldwide Diving Adventures that chartered the boat for a three-day excursion.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Maria Caspani; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Grant McCool)

Probe of California boat fire begins as grim search goes on for bodies

A woman pauses as she looks over a makeshift memorial near Truth Aquatics as the search continues for those missing in a pre-dawn fire that sank a commercial diving boat near Santa Barbara, California, U.S., September 3, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Omar Younis

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (Reuters) – Federal safety investigators on Tuesday promised an exhaustive probe into the fire that killed 34 people on a dive boat as many of the charred bodies remained trapped in the sunken wreckage off the California coast or missing in the ocean.

After recovering the remains of 20 people from the 75-foot (23-meter) Conception or from the waters where the dive ship sank off Santa Cruz Island, officials said they believed none of the 14 victims initially classified as missing had survived the fast-moving flames.

“There were several other victims that were seen by the divers – between four and six – that are still between the wreckage, but due to the position of the boat they were unable to be recovered before nightfall,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told reporters.

“Today, efforts will be made to stabilize the boat so that divers can safely enter it, search it and recover additional victims,” he said.

The five survivors, including the boat’s captain and four crew members, were above deck when the blaze broke out at about 3:15 a.m. Pacific time and escaped in an inflatable boat. A crew member who perished was apparently sleeping below deck with the passengers at the time.

National Transportation Safety Board member Jennifer Homendy said 16 investigators were already assigned to the probe, including specialists in operations, engineering, survival factors and fire analysis.

The investigators will collect all perishable evidence while on scene for at least a week, she said, but the Conception would remain on the ocean floor, more than 60 feet below the surface, until a site survey had been completed.

A few scant details about the victims, who ranged in age from 17 to 60, began to emerge as emergency workers planned to use DNA analysis to identify the remains of the 20 bodies recovered so far. Most of the victims were from the Santa Cruz and San Jose area, authorities said.

“MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY”

A memorial to the victims grew alongside a dock not far from where the ship was usually docked in Santa Barbara as members of the close-knit boating community reeling from the tragedy wove flowers into a wood and wire fence and constructed a makeshift memorial.

“It’s just such a horrific notion to think what the people down in the below decks, the people sleeping down there must have gone through,” said Judy Weisman, 72. “How terrifying.”

An audio recording of a desperate call made to the U.S. Coast Guard as flames engulfed the boat offered a glimpse into that terror as a man could be heard pleading for help.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” he said in the garbled recording of the call.

“That’s a distress, this is the Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles on channel 1-6, what is your position … and number of persons on board? Over,” the dispatcher answered.

“Twenty-nine. Twenty-nine POB,” said the man, using the abbreviation for “people on board” a vessel. “I can’t breathe! … Twenty-nine POB.”

The dispatcher requested the GPS location of the vessel at least two more times but the caller apparently failed to respond.

A name is written on a shell as it hangs on a makeshift memorial near Truth Aquatics as the search continues for those missing in a pre-dawn fire that sank a commercial diving boat near Santa Barbara, California, U.S., September 3, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

A name is written on a shell as it hangs on a makeshift memorial near Truth Aquatics as the search continues for those missing in a pre-dawn fire that sank a commercial diving boat near Santa Barbara, California, U.S., September 3, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Marine biologist Kristy Finstad, 41, was leading the dive trip on the Conception, according to her brother, Brett Harmeling. Finstad co-owned Worldwide Diving Adventures, which had chartered the boat for a three-day excursion to the Channel Islands.

“No final word on my sister Kristy; however it is likely she has transitioned to be with the good lord,” Harmeling said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

A seashell inscribed with the name “Kristy” was hung on the wooden fence at the dock.

(Reporting by Omar Younis; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg and Maria Caspani in New York, Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler)