Safety

There have been a number of safety related items received by ADAS in recent months.  These include various safety specific alerts; a NOPSEMA quality assurance alert; an ADCI maintenance and repair bulletin; and an IMCA prosecution advice.

Safety Alerts

Buoyancy Control Device (BCD) maintenance: An ADAS training establishment recently encountered issues with BCD inflators which led to students being unable to properly control their buoyancy.  The issue was discovered to be a mismatch of maintenance procedure protocols between two BCD suppliers.  More details can be found in ADAS Safety Alert 2016/2.

Exploding cylinders: ADAS was alerted to multiple incidents of gas cylinders exploding while being filled.  These cylinders are manufactured from aluminium alloy 6351-T6.  More details can be found in the SafeWork NSW Safety Alert issued in October 2016.

Polymorphic crystallisation in nylon-braided hoses: Divers Alert Network (DAN) produced an alert in July 2016 relating to polymorphic crystallisation in nylon-braided hoses.  This problem has led to the interior of some regulator hoses filling with crystallised material leading to a failure in SCUBA regulators and an out-of-air situation.  More details can be found in the DAN alert.

NOPSEMA Quality Assurance Alert

A quality assurance alert was issued in December 2016 in response to inspectors noticing an increasing rate of diving contractors failing to ensure diving system audits have been conducted to an appropriate standard.  More details can be found in Safety Alert 63.

ADCI Maintenance and Repair Bulletin

A bulletin relating to the stability of whisker clamps was issued in January 2017 to highlight the importance of using correct clamps on helmets and masks.  More details can be found in the ADCI bulletin.

IMCA Prosecution Advice

In 2013 the United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted a diving supervisor due to the dive team’s standby diver not being in a state of immediate readiness.  Although this prosecution is not recent, it does highlight the importance for all standby divers to be immediately ready to provide assistance to a diver in the water, not only to first and foremost save a life, but also to comply with relevant legislation.  More details can be found in the IMCA Information Note.

ADAS has created two standby diver related safety videos which provide guidance about standby divers being correctly dressed and ready to enter the water immediately. The videos can be viewed below: