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It is true that human error is the primary cause of CCR fatalities, the reason why rebreathers are seen as dangerous is because many of the failure modes are completely silent and a very short period from we have a problem until unconsciousness. Like the Hawaiian fatality and the one we had here at Ginnie two years ago, they probably had no clue that they were going to die until they found themselves in the after life. While most failure modes and errors in OC outside depth violations are quite obvious. And you likely have a chance of noticing the problem and taking some sort of action. IMO that is why rebreathers have their reputation. It doesn't help that lots of CCRs are poorly designed. "Let's put the DIL and O2 MAVs on the same block with no real difference between the buttons, what could possibly go wrong." "Let's build a CCR where if you want a HUD that requires a complex and flaky arrangement to hook into the cells." Add into the mix new divers that quickly went to CCRs and are doing deep hypoxic dives but haven't built up their OC bottle management skills, so when they have to bail out swapping tanks it a painful possibly fatal process for them.

Personally saw 3 accidents, 1 deadly during covid when people started diving a lot in Belgian quarries. One extremely experienced instructor of my club died a few years earlier due to forgetting a valve after getting back in the water after first getting out when losing a fin at the start of the dive. I'm slowly getting interested in rebreather but be damn careful with them things. I'm always a bit critical of certain techies pushing toward rebreather diving. It's not for everyone.

Just saw this. We are going to Socorro end of March. Can't wait to see your report/video! We are already so excited. What boat are you on?

5:30 into the video: HUD's are backup systems only, and should be treated as such for a few reasons. The first is "Orientation Attention" which is tied to "Unconscious Selective Attention". Your brain picks and chooses what information to pay attention to ("Discovery Attention") based on a few variables such as immediate needs, perceived threat, actionable requirements, etc. Unfortunately, this means you really only ever "pay attention" to 10% or less of the world around you. The HUD on the loop in front of your eyes is the same, and your brain will choose to ignore it simply because things "go right" greater than 99% of the time. Dive after dive after dive, you complete the dive successfully, and the HUD, while flickering in front of your eye, will disappear from your vision entirely (despite the flickering LED's), simply because your brain will purposely begin ignoring it as not worthy of its attention. The second reasons is "Retinal Rivalry". This is a subject all aviators are trained on, but applies equally to divers, and to which I discuss in my book and course on Spatial Disorientation for Divers. Essentially, if you have an object in front of one eye, and nothing in front of the other, the eyes will begin fighting back and fourth for visual dominance, up until your brain makes a decision to focus on what it thinks is more important. At the end of the day, thanks to the first issue mentioned, this means the ocean/landscape/object(s)/buddy(s) out in front of you will win, and that HUD with the blinking LED's will lose, slowly disappearing out of existence before you realize it during the early stages of the dive. This is exactly why I choose to stick to using a Petral2 on my arm instead of a NERD2 on my loop as my CCR Unit's controler.

i will being doing two weeks in the sea of cortez aug 7-17 2024. ill be bringing my KISS Classic with me!!

What I love about my RD1 rebreather is it’s FULLY modular and repairable this unit doesn’t seem to be as easily repairable also it’s 1/4 the cost 😅

I will do ccr/rebreathers potentially next year. Currently, I am getting ready for oc technical diving courses.

That water in Cabo is ridiculously warm.😂

Look at that pro intro!

When practicing bailing out, doesn't water get introduced into the mouthpiece even though the valve in front is closed off? In that case, just a small amount of water would be introduced into the system upon rebreathing again? Is this why there are water traps in the system?

I'm a rebreather diver, so I'm not anti-rebreathers by any means. However I think the attitude that it's safe because deaths are caused by human error rather than unit failure is flawed (and it is a very common attitude among rebreather divers). If you making a minor mistake is potentially fatal, then it is more dangerous, as we're all human, and we all do make mistakes. I think that attitude is actually holding us back from making rebreather diving safer, and is a way of avoiding confronting the fact that it is more dangerous. RF4 was sobering, and it taught us that rebreather fatalities are still occuring at about the same rate they were 10-15 years ago, whereas the general opinion in the community was that it had gotten significantly safer. Telling people to simply be more disciplined is unlikely to get us the step change we all want in making it safer. Personally I think a lot is in the unit designs. I'm always amazed for example that some units don't have an audible alarm (mine has a buzzer, aka "an attention getter").

@9:24 is that scene from zoolander where they want to get the files out of the machine but it is sorb in a canister.

You say that many rebreather accidents are due to human error. This is true, but remember that rebreather divers tend to be already highly experienced open-circuit divers. They are generally not stupid, even if with 20/20 hindsight they appear to have done something really dumb. In the sad case you mention the guy was a Navy diver, a qualified professional, undergoing his final CCR training. So the important thing is to understand that the human brain is an integral part of your dive equipment, and know what its common failure modes are, as well as a the technical failures we tend to concentrate on, say with the scrubber or electronics. As I understand it, CCRs are now pretty safe but there is more knowledge and new skills to master and the diver needs to be firmly in the zone, and aware of potentially dangerous distractions or mental pressures. For instance, as Aitor says, in the real world you wouldn't work through your checklist while doing a piece to camera. Gareth Lock, one of my old colleagues when I worked for a living, has made an excellent film that includes some great points: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fqtglpqo3LrYh4U.html

Rebreathers are great because you have lots of time to work through a problem if you need to.

I dont see the sea of cortez trip

In 17 mins - with the dangerous assumption that all those ending up on a rebreather (for whatever reason) are the right people, in the right circumstances...

The rate of rebreather incidents and fatalities per hour of diving is significantly higher than open circuit. The chance of breathing a gas incapable of supporting life on open circuit is much much lower

I understand that rebreathers can be safe. Saying that I have known several very accomplished divers that have died on rebreathers. My choice is to continue to dive OC.

So not only do you need an expensive rebreather, you have to have two really expensive computers as well? That's an additional $3.5K or so! If you bought two Petrel 3's.....

I was out as soon as I heard human error . . .

"Are they dangerous?" *proceeds to have a light hearted conversation about death* I'd say they are. 1 in 100 die using a rebreather.

I'm sorry but in my opinion, rebreathers have too many service points compared to open circuit scuba diving, which makes that many more points where even a consciousness diver can slip up with fatal consequences. There is a place for rebreathers in the military and maybe certain types of scientific or commercial diving but not in recreational diving. And almost whenever I read about a dive fatality, the person was on a rebreather. And the units themselves are so hinky, you need open-cir until bailout tanks with you anyway (that be like open circuit divers being required to also have a rebreather.) Why even today, I walked into a shore dive without my fins and I'm a Divemaster and a very consciousness diver 😅😅😅