Posted on 09/05/2019 3:36:44 PM PDT by atc23
LOS ANGELES — One of the crew members aboard the dive boat Conception hadn’t been asleep long when a noise jolted him awake.
He swung open the door of the wheelhouse — the top level of the 75-foot boat, located just above the galley — and was greeted by flames.
As the fire raged in the predawn hours of Labor Day, the vessel’s captain made a frantic mayday call to the Coast Guard. Then he and four crew members jumped from the wheelhouse and climbed into a dinghy to get help from the Grape Escape, a fishing boat anchored nearby off Santa Cruz Island.
Once aboard, the crew member who had been jolted awake shook as he recounted the horrific story to Grape Escape owner Shirley Hansen. His theory, Hansen said, was that the fire started in the galley, where cellphones and cameras had been plugged in to charge overnight.
(Excerpt) Read more at militarynews.com ...
One crewman had his girlfriend down there as well.
My understanding was that if the galley was on fire then both hatches to below decks would be unreachable.
If the fire STARTED below decks as per the lithium battery scenario then by the time the fire spread to the point that the crew in the wheelhouse knew of the fire there was nothing that could be done.
No point in making premature accusations.
Why do you say that? The flames in the galley were torching the overhead. - which is the deck of the bridge and crew quarters. By the time they jumped off the entire boat was on fire "from stem to stern" as the Grape Escape owner says.
I am interested to know WHO the one person is that the recovery team has NOT found. That's an immediate focus of the investigation from an arson point of view. Unlikely but that must be considered.
If the electrical system wiring in the bunk area got hot and 'flash flamed' in the bunk area, that would explain it.
Does "noise jolted" = explosion? Then a faulty tank or valve is to be looked at.
meth lab
My claustrophobia would never allowed me to stay on that boat.
Seems to me the crew has one job which is to keep passengers safe.
Why don’t they use propane for cooking on that boat? Is that how all commercial vessels are regulated.
Has anyone reported an explosion before the boat was engulfed in flames?
When I first I heard about this, the only two things that made sense to me were:
(1) The passengers were incapacitated or dead from carbon monoxide or some other gas.
(2) A fire accelerant was spread around deliberately so there was no explosion.
Anybody on board have a Muslim name?
Any weird loner white guys on board?
re: “oxygen tanks.”
I’ll bet they’re just air tanks ...
The crew quarters are in a different location and sometimes crew members sleep on the deck. This is a standard design in most commercial vessels. At this point all indications are that the exits were blocked by flames and that the crew jumped for their lives. Along with the families of the victim, they will have to live with this the rest of their lives. Some will cope, some will hit the bottle or drug themselves into oblivion. Life is hard, death is harder, pray for all of those involved in this tragedy.
Seems to me the crew has one job which is to keep passengers safe.
...
I think the only way they could have done that would have been if one of them was on watch.
Once the fire was going it was too late.
I have heard from radio interviews that the bunk room was very crowded and had a single narrow stairway up to the deck.
Thr investigators have been looking at a sister ship and there was also an emergency escape hatch, but they found that emergency hatch almost impossibly difficult to access and operate.
If the charging station ignited a fure that blocked the primary escape route, the passengers probably had little chance of escape.
Not a good look that most of the crew survived and all of the passengers perished, but apparently the company that operates the boat has a lot of experience and a good reputation.
First thing? Where did you see that? Jerry made two calls to CG via radio which were answered by the dispatch. Jerry made those calls standing in the middle of smoke and fire on the bridge. One crewman had his girlfriend in the bunkroom. The crew threw 2 birthday parties the night before for some kids. One of the cooks was down there. This was the beginning of Day 3 of a 3 day trip so you've, as a crewmember, begun to make friends with these people but you probably know them already since they're "regulars" -
I doubt they just "jumped off first thing"
Bad lithium battery catching fire?
Most likely some cheap counterfeit piece of junk chicom battery.
No screams or calls for help were heard by the crew whatsoever. Heard that today on the news.
Is the manifest accurate?
If so, things that make you go "hmmmmmmmm"
Because it can start a fire? Because it's dangerous? Because Coast Guard regulations forbid it?
"The only crewmember to die was 26-year-old Allie Kurtz, who quit her corporate job at Paramount Pictures to work on dive boats and had recently been promoted to deckhand on the Conception."
Source: Only one person remains missing from California boat fire
OKAY, SO WHO IS MISSING? IF IT'S THE COOK MIKEY KOHL'S, HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO BITS BY A PROPANE TANK EXPLOSION???
“Once the fire was going it was too late.”
That’s the problem.
They let a fire start and didn’t notice, they claim, until it was “too late”.
So they bailed.
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