SH290: What Happens Underwater, Stays Underwater — And That's a Problem. Part 1 of 3
About this episode
This episode discusses the systemic issues in diving safety and the need for better reporting and learning from incidents.
This episode introduces the problem behind learning in diving safety, using the 2020 death of Linnea Mills to highlight how incidents are often caused by deeper system issues, not just individual mistakes. While near-misses and accidents happen regularly in diving, most are never shared or analysed, meaning valuable lessons are lost. Unlike industries such as aviation or healthcare, diving lacks strong reporting systems, regulation, and reliable data, so decisions are often based on uncertainty rather than evidence. Existing reports tend to focus on immediate causes like equipment failure or diver error, but miss the wider social, organisational, and environmental factors that shape outcomes. The episode argues that meaningful learning comes from “context-rich” stories that explain not just what happened, but why it made sense at the time. Drawing on safety research from other industries, it highlights the need for a stronger reporting culture, psychological safety, and system-level thinking to improve learning and prevent future incidents. Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/msc-part-1-the-problem-space References: Dekker, S. (2017). Just culture: Restoring trust…
People in this episode
Host: Gareth Lock
Topics covered
- diving safety
- learning from incidents
- reporting culture
- system-level thinking
- psychological safety
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The Human Diver
Books & works: Just culture: Restoring trust and accountability in your organization, What is learning: A review of the safety literature to define learning from incidents, accidents and disasters
More episodes of Counter-Errorism in Diving: Applying Human Factors to Diving
- SH297: CRM, ISO 8804, and Scientific Diving: Opportunities and Existing Materials
- SH296: When 'I'm Fine' Isn't True: Speaking Up and Ending the Dive
- SH295: Four Ways We Talk About 'Human Factors' in Diving
- SH294: Clickbait, trolls and comments. How dive incident posts can teach us — if we let them
- SH293: Why does nothing change? Why do the same failures keep happening?
- SH292: Learning or Blaming: The Choice the Diving Industry Needs to Make. Part 3 of 3.
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Counter-Errorism in Diving: Applying Human Factors to Diving podcast page.