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Sunday, February 16, 2025

LMCS MD: Paria did not intend to rescue divers

by

803 days ago
20221205

KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With his son trapped in­side a 30-inch pipeline with col­leagues he con­sid­ered his broth­ers, Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vice Ltd (LM­CS) man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Kaz­im Ali Sr said his main con­cern was get­ting them out alive.

How­ev­er, Ali Sr felt Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Co Ltd did not in­tend a res­cue, while he was con­fi­dent about ex­e­cut­ing it.

He told the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the Paria/LM­CS Div­ing Tragedy at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, on Mon­day the four peo­ple did not die from the in­ci­dent but the lack of ac­tion that fol­lowed.

Ali Sr said he learned his son Kaz­im Ali Jr and em­ploy­ees Christo­pher Boodram, Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuf Hen­ry and Rishi Na­gas­sar dis­ap­peared around 3 pm on Feb­ru­ary 25.

He ar­rived at the LM­CS barge near Paria’s Berth No.6 in the Pointe-a-Pierre har­bour about 15 min­utes lat­er and did not see any of­fi­cials.

LM­CS div­ing su­per­vi­sor An­drew Far­rah in­spect­ed the seabed and the hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber where the divers worked.

He said when Far­rah told him that he had not found the con­tents, like bolts and span­ners on the seabed, they as­sumed every­thing got sucked in­to the pipeline, in­clud­ing the divers. He said he com­mu­ni­cat­ed this to Paria.

Ali Sr said they be­lieved that if the men were alive, they had an hour to live if they all re­lied on one scu­ba tank each. Be­fore Boodram es­caped the line, he did not con­sid­er there were air pock­ets, he said. 

In a pre­vi­ous hear­ing, Paria’s tech­ni­cal and main­te­nance man­ag­er Michael Wei said they in­struct­ed LM­CS that fur­ther div­ing in­to the pipeline was pro­hib­it­ed be­cause it was un­safe. Paria want­ed to as­sess the con­di­tions in the line be­fore at­tempt­ing a res­cue, fear­ing an­oth­er Delta P event would oc­cur.

LM­CS at­tor­ney Kami­ni Per­saud-Maraj re­ferred the CoE to Per­mit to Work (PTW) 9302 is­sued on Feb­ru­ary 25, signed by Paria’s main­te­nance tech­ni­cian Hous­ton Mar­jads­ingh.

Un­der the head­ing Dai­ly Work Sus­pen­sion, Per­saud-Maraj showed an an­no­ta­tion ini­tialled HM at 15.22 hrs.

Ali Sr ex­plained that this was when Paria pulled the PWT and in­struct­ed LM­CS to cease all work.

He said this al­so pre­vent­ed the ex­e­cu­tion of the LM­CS res­cue plan. The LM­CS Emer­gency Re­sponse Plan (ERP) con­sid­ered con­tin­gen­cies for the ves­sel, hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber and an un­der­wa­ter emer­gency.

Ali Sr agreed that it did not iden­ti­fy a res­cue in a pipeline. 

Paria pre­vi­ous­ly made it clear that LM­CS was re­spon­si­ble for re­spond­ing to a cri­sis.

Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union rep­re­sen­ta­tive, at­tor­ney Ho­sein Shah, re­ferred to the ERP, which stat­ed that in any emer­gency in the hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber, as­sis­tance would come from the ad­di­tion­al divers on site.

Ali Sr agreed that LM­CS had emer­gency as­sis­tance, but Paria and the Coast Guard even­tu­al­ly pre­vent­ed the com­pa­ny from ex­e­cut­ing its plan.

While Paria feared a Delta P event could re­oc­cur, Ali Sr said this was pos­si­ble with ex­ter­nal forces in the line. How­ev­er, he said the con­di­tion in the pipeline sta­bilised and it was iso­lat­ed, so no one could switch on a pump else­where.

While LM­CS did not con­sid­er the lo­ca­tion of the in­flat­able plug on Feb­ru­ary 25, he said once the pres­sure equalised in the line, there was no flow in or out­side.

When the ques­tion of Delta P emerged the fol­low­ing day, Ali Sr pro­posed to fill the ris­er at Berth No.5 with equiv­a­lent liq­uid to Berth No.6 to sta­bilise the line. At this stage, he re­alised the plug was in the pipe.

CoE chair­man Jerome Lynch KC asked if the fact that Boodram es­caped the pipe al­le­vi­at­ed the prospect of an­oth­er Delta P event oc­cur­ring. Ali said it would have, be­cause Boodram would have passed through a pres­surised bub­ble and there was in­for­ma­tion that four divers were to­geth­er.

Shah al­so re­ferred to the LM­CS Site Safe­ty Plan sub­mit­ted to and ap­proved by Paria. Un­der the head­ing Div­ing Op­er­a­tions, it stat­ed that stand­by divers must be present and suit­ed up to ren­der as­sis­tance through­out the dive. Ali Sr agreed this was in place, which in­clud­ed Far­rah, a com­mer­cial div­er trained in pipeline op­er­a­tions.

Ad­di­tion­al divers ar­rived at dif­fer­ent times with equip­ment to trav­el 300 feet in­to the pipeline.

Ali Sr said footage from a boro­scope in­sert­ed in­to the pipeline showed a scu­ba tank at the el­bow 10 feet away from the ris­er at Berth No.6. Footage from a crawler showed the same tank 200 feet in­to the pipeline. He said he knew it was the same tank be­cause of the mark­ing. 

“One of the ex­perts said the rea­son he was not go­ing to dive, apart from be­ing told by Paria that it was a re­cov­ery, was be­cause there was a block­age 150 ft in­to the pipe. It was the wrong in­for­ma­tion. This is what led peo­ple to say no, we can­not do it.”

He said they used this in­for­ma­tion to con­clude there was no air pock­et.

Lynch was al­so not per­suad­ed by this ob­ser­va­tion made by sev­er­al peo­ple be­cause Boodram man­aged to pass it to get out.

“I can­not see how it was a prob­lem for any­one to get in,” Lynch said.

The As­so­ci­a­tion of Div­ing Con­trac­tors In­ter­na­tion­al Inc re­port found that the divers should have been teth­ered in the cham­ber with a sur­face sup­ply air.

Ali Sr saw ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages re­gard­ing the spe­cif­ic job.

He agreed with Boodram that teth­er­ing could stran­gle a div­er while be­ing sucked in­to the line and tan­gle with each oth­er.

How­ev­er, pro­vid­ing the divers sur­vived en­try in­to the pipeline, there might have been a bet­ter chance of draw­ing them out. It would al­so pro­vide oxy­gen to them in the line.

Un­der ques­tion­ing, he told Lynch that teth­er­ing would have pos­si­bly been bet­ter and he would now use it. How­ev­er, he said mov­ing for­ward, the main ob­jec­tive would be to en­sure there was no Delta P haz­ard.


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