As investigators probe Monday’s deadly dive boat fire near Santa Barbara, a key unanswered question was how flames could so quickly consume the 75-foot vessel.
But two things could have turned the ship into a raging inferno — whether added oxygen was being used for the divers’ air tanks, and the boat’s wooden hull construction, according to a marine forensic consulting expert.
“If there was a leak in the oxygen, it would act like a blast furnace,” said Gregory T. Davis, principal consultant with Davis Marine Consulting Associates in Tesuque, New Mexico, who is not part of the investigation but is often an expert witness with 44 years of experience in the field.
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“Wood is combustible, so it’s going to contribute to the fire,” Davis added. “The whole boat is combustible. It’s got plenty of fuel. Add oxygen and now it’s going to burn really good.”
U.S. Coast Guard records show the Conception had been regularly inspected and that safety deficiencies, including for fire risk, were promptly fixed when noted. Davis said after reviewing the online records for the Conception that there was nothing that stood out as troubling.
“They corrected all the stuff they were supposed to correct at each one of the inspections,” Davis said, though he added that the records available online do not show the certificates of inspection that could reveal more.
The boat, one of three operated by Truth Aquatics in Santa Barbara, was most recently inspected Feb. 13, records show.
A woman who answered the phone at Truth Aquatics said the dive boat operator had no comment at this time and has not received any information about the fire’s cause.
Several charter operators have described Truth Aquatics as a reputable and safety-conscious company.
Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked the fire, first reported around 3:30 a.m. in a frantic mayday call to the Coast Guard. The vessel was quickly engulfed. Five crew members who were awake at the time and jumped free of the burning boat are the only known survivors among the six crew members and 33 passengers aboard.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein called it “inconceivable” on Monday “that with all the safety regulations we have in place today, a fire on a boat can lead to the loss of life we saw this morning near Santa Cruz Island.”
The last fatality associated with the Conception was during a March 19, 2016, excursion to Santa Cruz Island, the same location where the vessel burst aflame Monday, when an adult man with heart trouble died shortly after surfacing faster than the rest of his group.
Wayne Brown, owner of Aggressor Adventures, a global dive boat operator based out of Georgia, was skeptical oxygen fueled the disaster. Brown, who doesn’t know those involved with the Conception, said the concentration of added oxygen “doesn’t create additional risk.”
Truth Aquatics’ website, though, indicates that nitrox — a nitrogen-oxygen mixture Davis said can be used to extend the time divers can spend underwater — was available aboard the Conception. And Davis said that if crew members were filling bottles and there was a flame nearby, it could rapidly erupt.
“You could have a really small fire start,” Davis said. “But with the presence of the oxygen, if it’s leaking, it will become a huge inferno really quick.”
The Conception was reportedly built with a fiberglass-clad wooden hull, something both Davis and Brown said could have helped a fire spread fast.
“All ours are either aluminum or steel,” Brown said, “so fire doesn’t have much material to spread with.”
The Conception, built in 1981, has had a colorful history. Truth Aquatics owner Glen Fritzler became a partner with founder Roy Hauser, his mentor, shortly after becoming a licensed captain at age 19 in 1979, according to California Diving News. They collaborated on designing the Conception, described as the “crown jewel of live-aboard dive boats” and where Fritzler, honored in May with a California Scuba Service award, met his wife and mother of their two children.
But in 2005, the Conception nearly was lost. A drifter stole the boat out of the Santa Barbara harbor, hitting three vessels on the way out and sinking one of them, before running aground near Point Arguello. The damage to the Conception was reported at the time to be so extensive it wasn’t clear whether it could be salvaged.
Davis said that while the Conception met safety requirements, the 33 passengers aboard Monday seemed high for a boat that size and may have made it harder for so many to escape the flames.
“This is a very high passenger count,” Davis said, “for such a small boat.”
