Episode Details

This episode looks at the 2021 wreck diving tragedy on HMS Scylla, where three experienced divers entered the wreck and only one survived. It first examines the kind of reaction often seen on social media, where the incident is explained as a series of obvious mistakes made by individuals. It then explores the same event using a human factors and systems approach called LEODSI, which looks at how people, environment, equipment, tasks, organisational culture, and time interact to shape decisions and outcomes. Instead of asking “who failed?”, this perspective asks how normal behaviour, built on experience, trust, and familiar conditions, can combine with changing environments, increasing stress, and limited time to slowly reduce safety margins. By understanding how these factors interacted to produce the outcome, the aim is to help the diving community learn in a deeper way and improve the overall system so that safer decisions become easier and tragedies like this are less likely to happen.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/scylla-wreck-penetration-leodsi

Links: Interview with Adam on the Deep Wreck Diver Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMYKjZocins

Linnea Mills Case: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/linnea-mills-death-hf-systems-lens

Death of a 12 year old in Texas during Open Water training: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/learning-from-tragedy-dh

Learning from Emergent Outcomes: https://www.thehumandiver.com/lfeo

Dive Talk review of the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvCr3_pX4a4

Tags: English| Learning, Incidents & Just Culture