Accident Smith Mountain Lake Va.

[underh2o]

Monday Smith Mountain Fire and Rescue and Scruggs Dive Team did a recovery on the lake. Crane flipped over man trapped for hours dive team recovered. First, commercial accident on lake since 1972. you can see footage if you google wdbj7 crane accident on smith mountain lake.

[Crimediver]

I have dived Smith Mtn. Lake before on a body recovery. The hard part of diving this lake is how deep it can get just a very short distance from shore. I have been 30 feet from shore and in 90 feet of water. Then there is the issue of a lot of flooded timber. It can be a bit challenging having to work yourself down through a bunch of treetops of flooded timber just to get to the bottom. Just diving in a forest keeps you from even being able to use search lines and makes it very difficult to use a side scan sonar.

Do you know how deep the crane was once it went into the lake?

[underh2o]

55 ft vis was about 16 in. Crane was 10 ton crane problem is trying to bring it up

[Crimediver]

Sounds pretty typical for SML. I suppose it will be an interesting salvage job. Hope nobody else gets hurt during the process.

[underh2o]

Problem is it was teh biggest crane the company had. All other cranes will have issues b/c osha bringing it up. Coast Guard is involved and taken over all investigations b/c commecial accident.

[USF_Diver]

Ive been on that lake before, my uncles parents had a huge home on the lake 10 years ago.

How deep is that lake?

[Crimediver]

I don't know how deep it is but I have hit 100 feet on the couple of times I have been there. It is dark, deep and cold. I suspect there are places a lot deeper than 100'.

[USF_Diver]

Per wikipedia 250ft, man thats a deep lake.

[underh2o]

crimediver is right cold deep dark. black water dive. the power company bought the land flooded it all. another danger is that when the land was bought. stipulation was that everything above 20 feet had to be top to 20. so houses,barns, equipment, trees, fences including barb wire is still there. so one of the biggest is the entanglements.