The sinking of MV Conception occurred on September 2, 2019 after the 75-foot (23 m) dive boat caught fire and eventually sank off the coast of Santa Cruz Island, California, United States, killing 34 of 39 people aboard. The boat was anchored overnight at Platts Harbor, a small undeveloped bay on the island's north shore, when a fire broke out on the main deck shortly after 3 a.m. The 33 passengers and 1 crew member who were sleeping below the main deck were trapped by the fire and killed. The remaining 5 crew had sleeping berths on the top deck and were able to escape. The five survivors placed an initial mayday call to the Coast Guard and attempted to alert the people below deck but all routes to the main sleeping area were blocked by fire and they were forced to jump overboard. The surviving crew retrieved the Conception's skiff and motored to a nearby boat where a second radio dispatch was made. The rescue and recovery operations were coordinated by the United States Coast Guard.
The sinking is the worst maritime disaster in California since the sinking of the Brother Jonathan in 1865 and the deadliest in the United States overall since the USS Iowa turret explosion in 1989.
Boat
Motor vessel (initialized "MV") Conception was a 75-foot (23 m) liveaboard boat built in Long Beach, California, and launched in 1981. She was one of three dive boats owned by Truth Aquatics, which operated charter excursions from Santa Barbara Harbor for groups of divers interested in exploring the Channel Islands, located close to the coast of Southern California across the Santa Barbara Channel from Santa Barbara and Ventura County. Conception was under charter to Worldwide Diving Adventures (WDA) for a three-day scuba diving excursion over the Labor Day holiday weekend, which was one of WDA's most popular diving tour packages. The boat had been refurbished at a cost of more than $1 million following an incident in 2005 when it had been stolen and run aground.
Federal and international regulations require boats over a certain size to be made of fire-resistant materials and to include fire sprinklers and smoke detectors wired into the ship's electronics or linked to the bridge. Given the vessel's age and size, Conception was not covered by those regulations. She measured less than 100 GT and had fewer than 49 berths. She was made of wood covered with fiberglass, as permitted by regulations last updated in 1978. At the time of the fire, Conception was believed to be in compliance with those regulations, and the most recent Coast Guard inspections in February 2019 and August 2018 did not result in any noteworthy violations. According to the vessel's Certificate of Inspection, she had a maximum capacity of 103: four crew and 99 passengers; one crewmember was required to be designated as a roving patrol at all times when the passenger bunks were occupied.
The boat was laid out with three decks. The upper deck contained the wheelhouse, crew quarters, and a sun deck lounge area. The main deck, just below the upper deck, included a large cabin, which had a galley (in the forward portion of the cabin) where the crew could prepare meals and a salon (in the aft portion) with seating for meals. The salon was accessed from the stern through a hallway lined with restrooms. On the lower deck, up to 46 individuals could sleep in 13 double bunks (12 of which were stacked in twos) and 20 single bunks (18 stacked in threes), with one labeled as reserved for crew. The lower deck also contained the shower area, anchor locker, engine room, and lazarette (a machinery space). The rest of the crew berths were located two decks above, in the aft portion of the wheelhouse on the upper deck.
According to the deck plans, the main access to the guest accommodations on the lower deck was the forward stairway connected to the galley and main deck cabin. The designer of the vessel stated that there were two exits from the lower deck bunk room: a forward staircase at the bow end of the vessel that led up to the galley area, and an aft escape hatch located above one of the bunks, which led to the salon. After exiting the aft escape hatch, a person would still be within the main deck cabin, approximately 3 to 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2 m) forward of the exit to the main deck. Some former dive passengers could only recall the forward stairway exit and could not recall if they had been briefed on the presence of the aft emergency escape hatch. Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown stated both exits appeared to have been blocked by fire during the disaster.
Fire
Voyage
Conception departed Santa Barbara Harbor at 4:04 a.m. on August 31 and arrived at a dive location near Albert Anchorage, on the south side of Santa Cruz Island, by 8:30 a.m. that morning. The six-person crew consisted of the captain, a second captain (the Truth Aquatics title for mate), first and second deckhands, and first and second galleyhands. Upon arrival and while eating breakfast, the first deckhand conducted a safety briefing, which was interrupted when a passenger fainted; after the passenger was revived, the captain continued the briefing. Conception then sailed to the eastern side of the island and anchored in Smuggler's Cove overnight. As part of their regular nighttime routine, the crew had an unwritten policy to shut down the circuit breakers to de-energize the galley burners and griddle.
The excursion held a night dive at Quail Rock, on the northern coast near the western end of the island, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on September 1. The returning divers stowed flashlights, cameras, and photo strobes on the two aft tables in the salon; some of these were plugged in to charge alongside cellular phones and tablets. The first galleyhand recalled that when he plugged in his phone to charge that night, he "saw sparks" at the receptacle.
Discovery of the fire
On the night of the fire, the second galleyhand woke at approximately 1:30 a.m. and went to the galley to wash dishes; he did not see any other passengers or crew awake at the time. After emptying the trash, he went back to sleep in the crew quarters on the upper deck at approximately 2:35 a.m. He later awoke to the sound of a pop in the dark and believed it to be a disoriented crew member or passenger. Upon leaving his bed to attempt to aid the individual, he discovered an uncontrollable fire on the main deck below. The fire had already spread to the aft end of the upper deck, and was blocking their way to the main deck, as the aft ladder was already engulfed in flames. The second galleyhand returned to wake the remaining crew on the upper deck, and two mayday calls were placed at approximately 3:14 a.m. from the wheelhouse of the Conception.
The five crew members that had been sleeping on the upper deck jumped down to the main deck and one broke his leg in the process. The second galleyhand was the first to descend, lowering himself after leaving the wheelhouse through the wing station door on the port side of the boat. He tried to go aft to retrieve fire extinguishers, but his path was blocked by smoke and flames billowing out of the salon windows. The first deckhand followed soon after the second galleyhand; the second galleyhand saw him come down and turned back from the smoke and flames. As the second galleyhand was turning around towards the bow, the first galleyhand was jumping down from the port side of the wheelhouse; the first galleyhand landed awkwardly and broke his left leg, and the second galleyhand hurdled over him while running forward.
The ship's captain said the aft escape hatch was engulfed in fire and the surviving crew could do nothing to help the passengers and the second deckhand, who were all sleeping in the lower deck berths. The first deckhand and second galleyhand then attempted to access the main deck cabin through the center window in the forward section of the boat; although the window was not hot, it could not be opened and only thick smoke could be seen through the window. Flames prevented the crew from accessing the salon along both the port and starboard exterior walkways to rescue the trapped passengers.
Mayday calls and abandoning the boat
At this time, the captain was transmitting mayday signals; after connecting to the watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles/Long Beach, the captain transmitted "39 POB [people on board]. I can't breathe. 39 POB. Platts." The captain then jumped directly into the ocean from the starboard wing door; since smoke was trailing behind him, several crewmembers thought he was on fire and the second captain followed him into the ocean to assist. The first deckhand remembered there was an axe in the wheelhouse just as the captain leapt, but since the captain was the last to leave the wheelhouse, it could not be retrieved. Access to the firefighting stations, at the port and starboard exterior sides of the aft end of the saloon, was blocked by the fire. Trapped by the fire, the first deckhand and second galleyhand followed the captains into the water; the second galleyhand encouraged the first galleyhand to abandon ship as well, which he was able to do through the port bow gate.
According to a video recovered by the FBI from victim Patricia Ann Beitzinger's iPhone, by 3:17 am passengers in the lower deck were awake and attempting to escape.
All five crew members eventually leapt into the ocean from the bow to escape the fire; the second captain, the first deckhand, and the captain retrieved the boat's skiff (an inflatable dinghy) from the stern, and, after retrieving the remaining crew, paddled approximately 200 yards (180 m) to the only boat moored nearby, the Grape Escape. Both the second captain and first deckhand reboarded the stern of Conception, and both were unable to access the lower deck in separate attempts. The first deckhand attempted to enter the engine room on the lower deck to start the fire pump, but the space was filled with white/grey smoke. The second captain noted the stricken vessel still had power while using the electric winch to lower the skiff from the stern. Once the skiff was in the water, the two were commanded by the captain to abandon Conception again.
The surviving crew put out another mayday alert from the Grape Escape at 3:29 a.m. and the second captain and first deckhand returned to the Conception in the skiff to search for survivors. While waiting for aid, small explosions were heard from the Conception, believed by the crew to be caused by the pressurized dive cylinders bursting from the heat of the fire. One of the distress calls sent from the Conception initially suggested that at least one individual below deck was awake, as a man's voice was recorded screaming "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! I can't breathe!" However, Glen Fritzler, the owner of Truth Aquatics, clarified the first mayday calls had been made by the captain of the Conception from the wheelhouse before he evacuated from the boat.
Emergency response
Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles–Long Beach received the mayday calls at approximately 3:14 a.m. The call was received via Channel 16 VHF, advising that Conception was in distress with 39 persons on board. Because the captain had abandoned the boat shortly afterward and was unable to respond to follow-up requests, a precise location was not provided and the emergency had not been declared as a fire; the location was estimated from the last automatic identification system broadcast from Conception, and the Sector Command Center (SCC) in San Pedro issued an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast (UMIB) at 3:22 a.m. Boats and helicopters from the Coast Guard, the Ventura County and Santa Barbara County Fire Departments, and a private company, TowBoatUS Ventura (formerly Vessel Assist Ventura) were dispatched to the site.