Boat captain abandons novice US divers in middle of the ocean in Thailand

[PoetDrunkInTheBoat]

So next thing you know, these two novices are going to want to climb Everest.

Then they are going to lose their oxygen bottles,

And then they are going to start removing their clothes when they feel hypoxia's first effects.

I say, stay home unless you know what you are doing.

Visit your Disney World exhibits, instead.

[Basil B]

Mountain of of A mole hill...

I am sure if it was true they would have named the dive company, where and when.

Firstly many repeatable dive centers in Thailand own their own boats with well experienced captains who know their job.

Just how long were they adrift, I recall one time being adrift for 20 minutes and could not see the boat when we surfaced, Just inflated my BCD which now acts a buoyancy aid, about another 3 teams pop up in the near vicinity and we just swam to form a big group, we had be on a drift dive of a small island and the current was a lot stronger than anticipated, turned out there were some novices who decided to stay in a sheltered bay and the boats priority was to cover for them.

[Wat dee]

Lucky there were cliffs in the middle of the ocean.

[Basil B]

The boat captain would rather have all of his customers die. Rather have them find out is boat is broke. It's better to save face in situations like these!

As the pictures prove the boat was close to rocks, if the engine was starting to play up that's the last place any boat would want to be, the question is what did the boat driver/captain do? did he radio/phone for help? how long before they were rescued and by who?

[PoetDrunkInTheBoat]

Mountain of of A mole hill...

I am sure if it was true they would have named the dive company, where and when.

Firstly many repeatable dive centers in Thailand own their own boats with well experienced captains who know their job.

Just how long were they adrift, I recall one time being adrift for 20 minutes and could not see the boat when we surfaced, Just inflated my BCD which now acts a buoyancy aid, about another 3 teams pop up in the near vicinity and we just swam to form a big group, we had be on a drift dive of a small island and the current was a lot stronger than anticipated, turned out there were some novices who decided to stay in a sheltered bay and the boats priority was to cover for them.

I agree, this diver center in question was not repeatable.

[sabaii69]

I will now say 'this is a BS story'. Don't believe it. But, wait, TIT.

[JoeThePoster]

Thailand - You pays your money, You takes your chances.

Sort of like paying your money to use the internet. I pays my money and end up reading your vacuous cliché.

You ain't gonna to get it free - that's for sure.

[chris12345]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

[zydeco]

Well, this ought to really help with TAT's plan to target the US for increased tourism this year. "Swim for your lives!"

[LUSHGOAT]

How many times do people have to ask " what's the name of the company and where did it take place. I'm a Dive Master A.I and once when we were diving the captain put the boat into gear and steamed off as I was surfacing by the the guide rope and that was in Pattaya. I was almost sucked into the prop I wanted to thump him but the Instructor with us talked me out of it, it was a scary experience

[crumpled]

This could have been extremely hazardous if there had been any problems with the dive and they needed the boat urgently. Luckily the divers hitched a ride home.

Yes, the 'captain' of the boat should face charges. He3 should have his name bandied about with everyone so he is never ever used again and feels the loss where it hurts him most - in the pockt.

Are there not international rules covering this sort of thing, at the very least?

I also see this has made international news and can do nothing but harm to the dive and tourist industry.

Yes, a complete a-hole for abandoning the divers.

As an aside, did not one of the divers have a waterproof mobile phone with them? Accidents happen and a phone could be very useful in these circumstances.

[kirk0233]

You are not dealing with "the sharpest knives in the draw", intelligence, education all leave alot to be desired in many countries. People just blindly expect things to be the same wherever they go, they are not, and they dont stop to think about where they are and who they are actually dealing with.If they know what they are doing, if they are trained, if they have experience? Or is it just some local driven purely by money and has no clue as to the implications of his actions and unknowingly put lives in danger.

Exactly who would not know that it is not safe to leave people who are diving at sea? The captain would have to be below profoundly retarded in my opinion to not comprehend this. However, if he were that disabled he would not be able to handle a boat. Could it be he is such a psychopath he did not care if his passengers died? Mental health problems seem to flourish here because there are not enough knowledgeable people to handle the problem and when a problem is recognize the typical solution is to spend more time at the temple rather than see a professional who might know something.

[stevenl]

This could have been extremely hazardous if there had been any problems with the dive and they needed the boat urgently. Luckily the divers hitched a ride home.

Yes, the 'captain' of the boat should face charges. He3 should have his name bandied about with everyone so he is never ever used again and feels the loss where it hurts him most - in the pockt.

Are there not international rules covering this sort of thing, at the very least?

I also see this has made international news and can do nothing but harm to the dive and tourist industry.

Yes, a complete a-hole for abandoning the divers.

As an aside, did not one of the divers have a waterproof mobile phone with them? Accidents happen and a phone could be very useful in these circumstances.

Did you see the answer the DC owner gave here, about 10 minutes before your reply?

If so, you'd realise your answer is of the mark.

[AngelsLariat]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

If you really are the owner of the dive shop in this story, then you are making a mistake to comment about the case in a public forum.

[kirk0233]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

What is the name of your dive company?

[chris12345]

I am the owner of the dive shop and I'm not going to name my shop. I have emailed the news papers about this and the divers who dived with us.

I don't really see the problem in posting on here. There is no "case" it is just a story. I just wanted to reply to a lot of the assumptions people we posting on here.

[stevenl]

I am the owner of the dive shop and I'm not going to name my shop. I have emailed the news papers about this and the divers who dived with us.

I don't really see the problem in posting on here. There is no "case" it is just a story. I just wanted to reply to a lot of the assumptions people we posting on here.

Agree with the latter but not with the former.

If there is nothing wrong with your actions here you should have no problems identifying yourself. Even stronger, if your actions prevented a possible big problem it could be very good promotion for you.

Edited November 16, 2013 by stevenl

[Loles]

Guys, I am a diving instructor with more than 2000 dives. Every diver boat there is a tour-leader, and when he/she says "can go" the captain leaves the dive place. So this title is deceptive, cause THE TOUR-LEADER ABANDONS divers.

Second. This is not high speciality. This happaned to me around 20 times from USA to Red Sea, every where.

Third. If some-one is novice he/she has to listen double than advanced divers.

[wilcopops]

10 to 20 years ago, thailand was an "adventure" destination......the idiosyncrasies and foibles were all part of the package......now tourist numbers have boomed and with it the problems and responsibilities of both tour operators and the country itself.

Sadly although the numbers and the problems have increased, Thailand so often seems to fail to face up to its responsibilities. 7% or more of the national income is a large proportion of the economy for any nation. It would seem that with the money comes the responsibilities.....but not in Thailand.

Inevitably, we are going to hear of more and deaths and other dangerous incidents in hotels, road transport, railways, boats, theme parks,diving, robbery on the streets etc etc. In fact in any activity that tourists undertake in large numbers. The big BUT is though that Thailand seems to be failing to come up to what one might reasonably expect as an international standard as regards to these matters. It seems to me that Thailand continues to hide behind a policy "caveat emptor" as a way of making the optimum income with the lowest input.

[CIHUAHUA]

The boatman needs a visit from "Dirty Harry".

Edited November 16, 2013 by CIHUAHUA

[stevenl]

Guys, I am a diving instructor with more than 2000 dives. Every diver boat there is a tour-leader, and when he/she says "can go" the captain leaves the dive place. So this title is deceptive, cause THE TOUR-LEADER ABANDONS divers.

Second. This is not high speciality. This happaned to me around 20 times from USA to Red Sea, every where.

Third. If some-one is novice he/she has to listen double than advanced divers.

Sometimes the tourleader is a diving tourleader, and sometimes on a small boat, like this possibly was, there is no tourleader left on board.

And I have done more than 2,000 dives as a diving instructor, a big part of them here in Thai waters.

You're making the same mistake quite a few people here are making: making presumptions without knowing the full story. I'd like to know the full story, but one party is in the USA and has possibly tremendously overdone what happened, another party gave an explanation but seems to be unwilling to completely clarify.

[GAZZPA]

First of all, in Thailand captain are only a captain of his boat, when people diving he have a rest or eating. Normally a diving companies rent the boat and captain have nothing to do with the dive operations. Most dive companies are operated by foreigner. When the days diving are completed, captain on the vessel get a signal to head back or change dive location.

So to blame the captain here are wrong I suppose and if captain have the responsibility for all divers, the dive operator are wrong doing.

I have been in the dive business many years and seen many divers left behind,

we always had a joke, try not to be the last boat who leave the dive site. Did we have other divers who not belong to us on our boat back to shore...yes.

So I would say, not blame the captain. The captain have nothing to do with the dive operations and should not.

So it comes back to us MR perfect Farrangs who run the dive operations, (some Thai runs shops as well)

Thailand are not any special, diver get left behind all over the world, but percentage are same I think, is just so many diving companies and divers yearly in Thailand so it comes on the map more often,

Left the business with no divers behind or death.

I see you many talk about the sharks, they are pretty harmfull, they have so many fish to hunt and don't really like people who gives a bubbling sound every few seconds. this could of course change with time and climate.

Am I reading this right? So, you are claiming that the captain of the boat has no responsibility for the passengers safe return? Are you for real? Personally I don't really care that it has happened in other places but I don't for a minute believe your bull that this is common.

The main difference here is that if a Captain does do this say in Australia there are most certainly serious consequences and the attitude towards the Captain will be very bad. Here however you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no value attached to a human life here.

I mean, what will happen to the captain? Are the police now looking for him because it could have been 6 deaths / disappearances we are reading about,, I suspect no and if it is no then it's disgusting. lastly, with your attitude towards this I would avoid you and your diving company like a large hole in the head.

[Kudel]

I am the owner of the dive shop and I'm not going to name my shop. I have emailed the news papers about this and the divers who dived with us.

I don't really see the problem in posting on here. There is no "case" it is just a story. I just wanted to reply to a lot of the assumptions people we posting on here.

I do not now what type of ship or boat was being used but i presume regular maintenance and checks where done on that ship and this should be easy to prove from log entries and invoices of spare parts that where bought for said boat.But as an ex first engineer on ships after what i have seen in Thailand i have my doubts about this international marine safety standards apparently dont apply to Thailand. Edited November 16, 2013 by Kudel

[MyFriend You]

I can understand accidentally leaving one or two behind.

But to 'deliberately' leave six divers behind is just plain unacceptable.

There is no excuse.

The captain should face criminal charges for this.

Hmmmm and what would they be - is there such a law as Recklas Endangerment?? Leaving the scene of a dive?? Pick one, 1000 baht fine and he'll be back out on the water next week.

[Travelman868]

You are not dealing with "the sharpest knives in the draw", intelligence, education all leave alot to be desired in many countries. People just blindly expect things to be the same wherever they go, they are not, and they dont stop to think about where they are and who they are actually dealing with.If they know what they are doing, if they are trained, if they have experience? Or is it just some local driven purely by money and has no clue as to the implications of his actions and unknowingly put lives in danger.

There have been a few comments on here recently suggesting that Thai's are stupid. I find these comments insulting to the Thai people.

[AngelsLariat]

You are not dealing with "the sharpest knives in the draw", intelligence, education all leave alot to be desired in many countries. People just blindly expect things to be the same wherever they go, they are not, and they dont stop to think about where they are and who they are actually dealing with.If they know what they are doing, if they are trained, if they have experience? Or is it just some local driven purely by money and has no clue as to the implications of his actions and unknowingly put lives in danger.

There have been a few comments on here recently suggesting that Thai's are stupid. I find these comments insulting to the Thai people.

What an astute observation. Until you pointed it out, I thought that it was a compliment to the Thai people.

[NomadJoe]

The boat captain would rather have all of his customers die. Rather have them find out is boat is broke. It's better to save face in situations like these!

As the pictures prove the boat was close to rocks, if the engine was starting to play up that's the last place any boat would want to be, the question is what did the boat driver/captain do? did he radio/phone for help? how long before they were rescued and by who?

Yes, lots of details missing from the report. Details which a local news station isn't going to know or care about just as long as they get words "abandoned". "middle of the ocean" and "sharks" into the report.

[NomadJoe]

Boat captain abandons novice divers in middle of the ocean in Thailand

The "middle" of the ocean is "in" Thailand?? Who writes these topic headlines?

People who's job it is to generate as many clicks/subscriptions/views as possible with no regard for journalistic accuracy or integrity. Fox news made this popular and everyone has followed suite. Now the news in the states is nothing more than infotainment. The adage "If it bleeds. it leads." has never been truer. Ironicaly, the best place for reliable and unbiased news in the states as The Daily Show on a channel called Comedy Central.

[Showbags]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

Good reply.

Nice to see a reply and not silence.

[Showbags]

You are not dealing with "the sharpest knives in the draw", intelligence, education all leave alot to be desired in many countries. People just blindly expect things to be the same wherever they go, they are not, and they dont stop to think about where they are and who they are actually dealing with.If they know what they are doing, if they are trained, if they have experience? Or is it just some local driven purely by money and has no clue as to the implications of his actions and unknowingly put lives in danger.

There have been a few comments on here recently suggesting that Thai's are stupid. I find these comments insulting to the Thai people.

Apologist alert....