Mobile phone video footage recovered from one of the victims of the 2019 Conception liveaboard fire tragedy has revealed that the divers were awake and trying to escape while the boat was burning.
The 23m (75ft) MV Conception was reaching the end of a trip through the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California when the vessel caught fire and sank whiled moored overnight off the coast of Santa Cruz Island on 2 September 2019.
Thirty-three divers and one crewmember who were sleeping on the Conception’s lower decks were killed, while the five surviving crewmembers who were quartered on the top deck survived by leaping into the water. The loss of life constituted California’s worst maritime disaster for more than 150 years.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that the blaze began in the Conception’s saloon, where electrical devices had been left to charge overnight, although it could not definitively apportion blame to the charging.
In the immediate aftermath of the fire, investigators reported that the deceased had all been killed by smoke inhalation before the fire spread to their sleeping quarters. It was later reported that some of the victims were wearing shoes and carrying mobile phones, implying that they were awake, and trying to escape.
In December, however, the FBI revealed that its agents had recovered a 24-second video clip recovered from one of the victim’s mobile phones proving that this was the case. Timestamps on the video reportedly show that it was recorded three minutes after the captain, Jerry Boylan, had radioed in a mayday call and abandoned ship.
The video footage has been shown to family members of the victims, who confirmed the account.
‘The fire alarm is going off … you see smoke coming in from some of the fans and down the stairwell,’ one of the relatives, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Los Angeles Times. ‘People are walking around looking for a way to get out. Someone says, “Hey, there’s got to be another way out of here,” and their voices weren’t panicked at first.’
According to the LA Times report, the video continues, showing smoke creeping into the cabin before it starts to fill the room, as one of the divers pulls up his shirt to protect himself from the smoke. The video shows the man and another diver trying to find a way out near a stairwell that led to the galley on the floor above. The video then captured a loud noise, the cause of which is unclear, and someone saying, ‘Oh f—.’
‘They didn’t die in their sleep like they first said,’ the victim’s mother said. ‘They died terrified, knowing they were going to die. Even there at the end, they weren’t giving up. They are trying to problem-solve.’
Investigators have concluded that by the time the video was recorded, the fire had already engulfed the Conception’s main deck, blocking the emergency exits as it did so. The surviving crewmembers apparently tried to find a way back on board to help, but the fire was already too intense.
The NTSB found that captain Boylan was at fault for not maintaining a proper watch during the night, and blame also lay with the boat’s owners, Truth Aquatics, for failing to ensure fire detection systems were functioning and emergency exits were accessible.
The captain, owner and US Coast Guard have all been sued over failures to ensure adequate safety measures that could have prevented the fire or allowed the divers to escape were in place and enforced.
Changes in maritime regulations to ensure all vessels are outfitted with appropriate safety equipment and emergency access have been implemented as a result of the tragedy.
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