Doug, Count me in. Vance
Shipmates,
I thought that Ray's recommendation that a small group of us get together and draft an set of protocols for next summer's convention was an excellent suggestion. I too left the convention with the feeling that "next time, we need a better plan". I would envision a few basic rules of the road to establish shared expectations, a basic plan for who does what when things go wrong, and some sort of wavier of responsibility form to protect PSUBS. Is there an attorney in the house?
As both Alec and Al have pointed out, we did in fact have a plan for this last convention. The fact that we did not inform the entire group of the plan is a lesson learned for next year. It was a simple plan, but then again it was a simple dive situation. We never had more than two boats in the water at any one time. There were lots of divers and observers. Al was on the pontoon boat as the safety diver. He had full gear and lift bags. I was mobile in my kayak, and extra pair of eyes and ears to alert Al of possible problems. Next year we will probably have a lot more psubs and surface vessels operating simultaneously. A more complex dive situation requiring, IMHO, a more complex plan. A plan that all participants know about.
Here at the FAA, as in many other places, we employ a bastardized version of a Capability Maturity Model (CMM) to assess the organizational maturity of some of our safety processes. The CMM began life about 15 years ago as a metric the Air Force could use to determine which software developers were mature enough to take on large development programs. But the general approach is now used in a lot of industries for a number of purposes. The idea is that an organization (say psubs) and the processes for which it is responsible (say safety of its members) and be categorized into one of five levels of maturity:
1. Initial-"We are making this up as we go along."
2. Repeatable-"We can probably pull this off if we do it the same way again."
3. Defined-"If we write all this stuff down, anyone will be able to do it."
4. Managed-"Let's measure this process and improve its efficiency."
5. Optimized-"Let's re-engineer this process and make this puppy sing and dance."
I hope you software engineers will forgive my flip treatment of your model. Over the years, I think our conventions have moved from Initial to Repeatable, and it is now time to move to Defined, as Ray suggested. We began with no conventions. Then we planned a convention but had to cancel it. Then we had a convention, but there were no PSUBS. Then we had a convention with PSUBS, but they were on static display in a parking lot. Only one was operational (Maynard's K-350), while Piere's BIG was under construction and my Undaunted had not been in the water since the 1970's.
Then last year we had a convention with five PSUBS, three of which we launched and two that were on static display. Instead of spending the day inside looking at powerpoints, we spent the day on the water diving PSUBS. Next year I am guessing many more PSUBS and surface vessels, with a need for some minimal central oversight.
IMHO, when a submersible pilot goes diving on his own, he has the responsibility to himself to take sufficient safety precautions to reduce his risk to what he considers to be an acceptable level. When one or more pilots go diving at a PSUBS sponsored event, not only must the pilot be satisfied with his own level of risk, but the organization must also be satisfied with its level of risk. Both personal and organizational risk must be identified and mitigated. The pilot will have his standard operating procedures and checklists for his own submersible, and PSUBS will have its own organizational standard operation procedures and checklists. The pilot will have no liability concerns, because frankly, no one is going to insure him while diving in a home-made submersible. His safety precautions are all the insurance he is going to get! . PSUBS should probably consult a good lawyer about its liability, and arrange for waiver of liability forms for all attendees, not just the pilots of the submersibles.
I read a number of posts from folks who were quite cool to Ray's suggestions. But I did not read anything that made me change my mind. The safety business is, whether we like it or not, a rule-based business. All of the high-hazard low-risk safety-intensive enterprises (aviation, petrochemical, nuclear power, etc.) attribute their fine safety records to systems safety, safety based on rules, standard operating practices, checklists, backups, etc. IMHO, PSUBS is behind the curve on building a safety system for our conventions and needs to get to it.
Ray, I volunteer to support, or even to lead, an ad hoc committee to put together a series of recommended protocols for normal and abnormal operations for new year's convention. We will also address the issue of liability and the viability of waiver of liability forms.
Doug Farrow