DIVING News:

20070808
• Minnesota - I-35W Bridge Collapse - Disaster - River - Navy - Robotic - Technology - Space Shuttle Columbia - USS-Monitor - Historic - Police - "Navy Divers Join Minn. Bridge Search." ... "An elite team of Navy divers joined the search for victims of the [Minneapolis, Minnesota I-35W] interstate bridge collapse Tuesday, bringing to the job lessons learned from such disasters as TWA Flight 800 and the loss of the space shuttle Columbia." ... "The team of 16 divers and a five-member command crew arrived a day earlier. Once their gear arrived before dawn Tuesday, several divers immediately entered the Mississippi River even though local officials encouraged them to wait until daybreak." ... "``Two in the morning, they dove into the water,'' Minneapolis Police Capt. Mike Martin said, calling them ``the best divers in the world.''" ... "Navy Senior Chief David Nagle said the divers wanted to get a feel for the area and were in the water for about two hours. Divers were back in the river by late morning, removing concrete rebar and other debris." ... "Joining the Navy team was an FBI dive crew, doing forensic work for the investigation. Their tools included a small unmanned submarine equipped with a robotic arm. ``It's basically crime-lab-underwater kind of work,'' Martin said." ... "The Navy and FBI team bring experience and technology far beyond what's been available to local search crews, who complained they have been hampered by dangerously unstable wreckage and a rapid current." ... "The Navy divers will be tethered to above-ground oxygen tanks, so they can stay in the water much longer than local divers, who had been using scuba tanks. Heavy-duty equipment will allow divers to cut through steel wreckage. The Navy also has sophisticated sonar to scan for bodies." ... "Navy divers assisted in the reclamation of historic sunken ships including the ironclad Civil War ship the Monitor." -By Patrick Condon with contributions by Steve Karnowski and Mark Scolforo -AP via -Guardian.co.uk

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20070803
• Minnesota - I-35W Bridge Collapse - Disaster - Water - Sheriff - Fire Department - "Divers work in a dark, dangerous world." ... "Divers searching in the murky Mississippi River for victims of the [Minneapolis, Minnesota I-35W] bridge collapse work in a hazardous world where a mistake can cost them their lives." ... "Underwater debris swirls the river's already powerful currents into whirlpools of fast-moving water that can endanger divers, authorities said." ... "And the water is a potentially lethal stew of fuel, broken glass, jagged car parts, and concrete and rebar from the fallen bridge." ... ""Conditions on the river are even more treacherous than yesterday," Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek said Friday. "The divers will be taking extreme caution. We will be slow and methodical during our search operations today." ... "Visibility in parts of the river is less than a foot, said one diver, Capt. Shanna Hanson of the Minneapolis Fire Department."" -CNN

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20060424
• Psychology - Military - Scuba - Florida - Wisconsin - "Scientists Probe the Use of the Tongue." ... "In their quest to create the super warrior of the future, some military researchers aren't focusing on organs like muscles or hearts. They're looking at tongues." ... "By routing signals from helmet-mounted cameras, sonar and other equipment through the tongue to the brain, they hope to give elite soldiers superhuman senses similar to owls, snakes and fish." ... "Researchers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition envision their work giving Army Rangers 360-degree unobstructed vision at night and allowing Navy SEALs to sense sonar in their heads while maintaining normal vision underwater turning sci-fi into reality." ... "The device, known as "Brain Port," was pioneered more than 30 years ago by Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita, a University of Wisconsin neuroscientist. Bach-y-Rita began routing images from a camera through electrodes taped to people's backs and later discovered the tongue was a superior transmitter." (1, 2) -By Melissa Nelson -AP via -ABCNEWS.com

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• Egypt - Police - Tourist - Scuba - "Blasts Kill 22 in Egyptian Resort City: Three Explosions in Egyptian Resort City Kill at Least 22 People, Wound More Than 150 Others." ... "Three nearly simultaneous explosions rocked the Egyptian resort city of Dahab on Monday, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 150 in a terror attack at the height of the tourist season." ... "Police said the explosions hit the central part of the city where there are many shops, restaurants, bars and guesthouses. The blasts ripped through the town at 7:15 p.m., shortly after nightfall, when the streets would have been jammed with tourists mainly Egyptians, Europeans, Israelis and expatriates living in Egypt." ... "For years, Dahab was popular, low-key haven for young Western backpackers including Israelis drawn by prime scuba diving sites and cheap hotels, which mainly consisted of huts set up along the beach. In recent years, a number of more upscale hotels have been built, including a five-star Hilton resort." (1, 2, 3) -By Steven R. Hurst -AP via -ABCNEWS.com

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20051221
• Florida - Business - Disaster - Water - Divers - "Chalk's grounds fleet for inspection after fatal crash off Miami Beach." ... "An airline voluntarily grounded its fleet Wednesday for inspection after investigators said cracks in the support beam of a wing apparently caused it to fall off a seaplane that then crashed, killing all 20 people aboard." ... "Chalk's Ocean Airways operates four other seaplanes, all the same model that crashed. The grounding came the same day federal investigators said they were trying to determine why the airline had apparently not discovered the cracks." ... "Salvage crews and divers worked for a second day Wednesday to haul up the plane's wreckage from about 35 feet of water in a channel off the southern tip of Miami Beach [Florida], where it went down Monday." -By Curt Anderson -Sun-Sentinel via -Newsday.com 

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20051107
• Hawaii - Scuba - Water - Animals - Business - "The Dangers of Hawaii's Fish Industry." ... "Every year. more than half a million of the state's most beautiful fish are taken our reefs and sent to aquarium tanks around the world. It's a multi-million dollar industry that's been mostly unregulated. Now, some say it's time for a radical change." ... "For decades now, the aquarium fishing industry in Hawai'i has been basically a free-for-all. Get a boat, some dive gear and a $50 permit and you're in business." ... "In the past 20 years, the state's total catch of aquarium fish has quintupled. Last year, the industry reported catching nearly 750,000 fish, grossing more than $3 million in sales." ... "Aquatic biologist Bill Walsh of the Department of Land and Natural Resources says that's not counting renegade fish collectors who don't report their catches." ... "Walsh is recommending banning aquarium fish collecting on at least 20 percent of all island coastlines. He's also recommending statewide bans on a few specific fish and a possible limit to the number of fish collectors." -By Keahi Tucker -KGMB9 

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20030306
• -  - Quad Cities area - "Driver, truck cab tumble off bridge into river at Le Claire [Iowa]." ... "A frantic search for survivors turned into a hunt for a body Wednesday after a pickup truck cab plunged at least 75 feet from a bridge into the icy Mississippi River." ... "The mangled frame of the pickup hung from the Interstate Highway 80 bridge near Le Claire for several hours after a two-vehicle accident. Divers searched the river below for the body of a man, not yet identified by authorities." ... "The temperature of the Mississippi River, which was not completely frozen, was about 32 degrees. The divers halted their work at times during the day to ensure their own safety, [Illinois State Police Sergeant] Burek said." -By Colleen Krantz -DesMoinesRegister/News

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20030219
• - Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster News - "Crews find shuttle's front landing gear." ... "Space shuttle Columbia's nose landing gear has been found largely intact in the woods near [Texas] Toledo Bend Reservoir, officials said Wednesday." ... "Navy Capt. Chris Murray said residents found the gear Tuesday and notified divers who were searching the East Texas lake for shuttle debris." -AP via -USATODAY

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20030204
• - Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster - "NASA focusing on tiles possibly hit on liftoff:  Bush heading to Texas for memorial." ... "NASA officials said Monday that they were focusing for now on the possibility that damage to the space shuttle Columbia's heat-resistant tiles during liftoff on Jan. 16 might have caused the shuttle to break apart as it descended toward Earth on Saturday." ... "NASA set up command posts in Texas and Louisiana as search teams returned to the flat fields and rain-soaked forests of East Texas, looking for debris. Divers plunged into a reservoir where a large chunk of metal splashed down." -By James Barron -NYTimes via  -IHT.com 

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20020806
• USS-Monitor - "Monitor turret raised from ocean:  'World's first armored revolving gun turret'." ... "In March 1862, the Monitor, a Union vessel designed by 19th-century engineer John Ericcson, battled with the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia (formerly the Union ship USS Merrimack) in a four-hour duel off Hampton Roads, Virginia. The first battle of the ironclads ended in a draw." -CNN 

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20020805
• USS-Monitor - "Historic USS Monitor turret raised." ... "The silt-packed turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was raised today from the Atlantic floor, nearly 140 years after the historic warship sank during a New Year’s storm." ... "The turret, on which hung an American flag, was raised at the end of a heavy cable attached to a crane on a 300-foot work barge." -By Mark St. John Erickson  -AP via  -Newsday.com

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• USS-Monitor - "Diver positioning cables to pull up gun turret from ocean floor." ... "The Union ship and the Confederate vessel CSS Virginia revolutionized naval warfare when they fought to a draw on March 9, 1862 near Newport News, Va. It was the first battle of ironclads - ships covered in iron plates to repel cannon balls." ... "The Virginia had banks of guns, but the entire ship had to be moved to get the best firing angles. The Monitor's revolving cylindrical turret allowed the ship to fire accurately while staying out of harm's way." -By Sonja Barisic -AP via  -NandoTimes 

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• USS-Monitor - "After 139 Years, Another Piece of the Monitor." ... "The bulk of the underwater work is performed by what the Navy calls "saturation divers," who work on the ocean floor for up to six hours at a time and live in pressurized bubbles on the barge for more than a week at a time." ... "The "sat divers" descend in a diving bell, the air around them pressing at 100 pounds per square inch -- six times as great as the Earth's atmosphere at sea level. They use a modern fiberglass helmet called an MK-17 instead of the once ubiquitous copper helmet. Their bodies, saturated with helium-oxygen, can withstand the depths for long periods." -By Michael D. Shear -WashingtonPost 

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• USS-Monitor - "Divers readying cables to raise USS Monitor." ... "A Navy diver worked Monday to position the cables needed to haul up the gun turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor after nearly 140 years on the ocean floor." ... "Underwater currents and shifting seas delayed efforts Sunday to put in place a heavy cable sling to lift the 120-ton turret -- considered to be among the most significant innovations in naval warfare." ... "A 500-ton crane aboard a barge moored above the Monitor wreckage, 16 miles off Cape Hatteras [North Carolina], is to pull up the revolving turret." -AP via  -CNN 

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