Lake Wazee accident

[jasondbaker]

We are starting to get more information from the surviving diver and family members -- albeit, through the media.  I still have lingering questions.

-- Several news articles report that these divers were experienced divers, passionate about diving and liked to push the limits.  Keith Cormican suggested these guys had the training to dive to depths of 150ft.  Did they have the formalized training to dive at the depths they were diving (reportedly around 200ft)?  How many previous dives did they make to these depths?

-- We keep reading that they were diving on air.  But the media doesn't understand the difference between air, nitrox, trimix, etc.  What gas mixtures were they carrying on their dive?

-- Did this incident occur on the first dive of the day or did they make an earlier dive?

-- What did the dive profile look like? How long at what depths?

-- Why were two of the three divers diving at a deeper depth while one diver was essentially diving solo at a shallower (although still deep) depth?

-- The surviving diver reported that he had a leak in a tank that caused him to surface.  What was his tank and gas configuration?  Assuming he had more than one tank or a pony bottle, if he had a leaking tank (blown o-ring, reg free flow?) why didn't he switch to a pony bottle for his deco obligation?

-- Was the surviving diver experiencing DCS symptoms or was he taken to HCMC as a precaution due to missing his deco stops?

-- Were these deaths the result of bad luck (i.e., heart attack), cascading set of events, or lack of proper dive planning? Or all the above?

I hope we get answers to these questions from the accident investigators over the coming weeks and months.  I'm sure there are other questions I'm not thinking of at the moment.