The chain of events that led to the tragic deaths of a young crewmember and all 33 passengers aboard the Conception dive boat in 2019 are directly addressed in new rules from the Coast Guard, which are proposed to take effect March 28, 2022.
The 33 divers were on a Labor Day weekend trip to the Channel Islands, having chartered the Conception out of Santa Barbara Harbor’s Truth Aquatics. Unknown to them, and revealed in subsequent investigations, training records were lacking to show the crew had practiced emergency response or fire suppression, fire or smoke detectors were not interconnected throughout the ship, the emergency escape hatch was fatally inadequate, the ship’s electrical wiring was a snake’s nest of power-strip cords, and, crucially, the captain did not set an all-night watch.