page_title: Sinking of MV Conception
section_title: Fire
hierarchical_section_title: Sinking of MV Conception / Fire
caption_attribution_description: English: The Coast Guard Cutter Narwhal is shown off the coast of Santa Cruz Island Sept. 4, 2019. The Narwhal is one of many vessels from multiple agencies assigned by the Unified Command to assist with motor vessel Conception response efforts. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Patrick Kelley)
context_page_description: The sinking of MV Conception occurred on September 2, 2019, when the 75-foot dive boat caught fire and eventually sank off the coast of Santa Cruz Island, California, United States. The boat was anchored overnight at Platts Harbor, a small undeveloped bay on the north shore of the island, with 33 passengers and 1 crew member asleep below decks when fire broke out shortly after 3 a.m. Five of the crew members, whose sleeping quarters were on the top deck, were forced by the fire to jump overboard but not before placing an initial mayday call to the Coast Guard and attempting to alert the passengers. The crew retrieved the Conception's skiff and motored to a nearby boat where a second radio dispatch was made. The loss of the boat spurred a rescue operation by the United States Coast Guard.
  It 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.
context_section_description: On the night of the fire, a crew member sleeping in the crew quarters on the sun deck 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 in the ship's galley, inside the main deck cabin. The fire had already spread to the aft end of the sun deck. The crew member returned to wake the remaining crew on the sun deck, and two mayday calls were placed at approximately 3:15 a.m. from the wheelhouse of the Conception. The five crew members that had been sleeping on the sun deck were unable to descend to the main deck, as the aft ladder was already engulfed in flames; they instead jumped down to the main deck and one broke his leg in the process.
  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 one crew member sleeping in the lower deck berths. The crew then attempted to access the main deck cabin through a window in the forward section of the boat, but were thwarted by thick smoke; flames prevented the crew from getting any closer to rescuing the trapped passengers. The five crew members leapt into the ocean from the bow to escape the fire; two 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.
  The surviving crew put out another mayday alert from The Grape Escape and two of the crew 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 rupturing 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.
  Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles–Long Beach received the mayday calls at approximately 3:30 a.m. The call was received via Channel 16 VHF, advising that a 75-foot commercial dive vessel was fully engulfed in flames with 39 remaining on board. 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. After arriving onsite, officials struggled to fight the fire, as the boat was in a remote location with limited firefighting resources, and the fire was moving quickly and kept flaring up. The anchor line of the Conception burned through and the boat began to drift towards the island, raising fears it might ignite onshore vegetation. In addition, since Conception had drifted into shallower waters, most of the fireboats on-scene were unable to continue fighting the fire for lack of clearance, including a shallow-draft Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol boat.
  In order to attempt to fight the fire and allow fireboats to reach the vessel, it was towed out to deeper water by the rigid hull inflatable operated by TowBoatUS. The fire was extinguished by 5:23 a.m. The Coast Guard cutter Narwhal, based in Corona Del Mar, arrived approximately two hours after being dispatched and remained onsite for four days as the command and control ship to coordinate rescue and recovery operations.
  The fire had burned to the waterline of the hull, which was also full of water from firefighting efforts. The hulk was not stable enough to place pumps on board to dewater it. Conception was then towed by the TowBoatUS vessel back to shallower waters to aid in its recovery, but the boat sank about four hours after the fire broke out, coming to rest upside-down at a depth of 64 feet (20 m) approximately 20 yards (18 m) from the north shore
caption: USCGC Narwhal at Santa Cruz Island (September 2019)
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1620", "Image ImageLength": "1080", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "The Coast Guard Cutter Narwhal is shown off the coast of Santa Cruz Island Sept. 4, 2019. The Narwhal is one of many vessels from multiple agencies assigned by the Unified Command to assist with motor vessel Conception response efforts. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Patrick Kelley)", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D750", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Artist": "Petty Officer 1st Class Patrick Kelley", "Image Copyright": "Public Domain", "Image ExifOffset": "292", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "986", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5169", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "3200", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "415241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "72", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1620", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1080", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "72", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}