Water. Ship. Down. (Feature/Anomalies & Phenomena)

The Sinking Of The Jascon-4

Bad Weather

The events of this story occurred in May of 2013 in the Atlantic ocean, in international waters near the coast of Escravos, Nigeria. Escravos is currently known for petroleum projects - Shell and Chevron have been raping the oil fields of the coast and refining crude in Delta State, Nigeria ever since they found a need for the stuff.

A Chevron tanker, filled to the eyeballs with gasoline, ran afoul of bad weather while at loading point SBM#3, which was located approximately 20 miles off-coast. The seas were rough and the tanker was valuable. To secure a mooring line and prevent the tanker’s loss, or damage which could result in an ecological disaster, the anchor-handling tug, Jascon-4, was dispatched. 

The Jascon-4, built for this kind of heavy duty assignment, arrived in the area to assist. The crew aboard the tug established a mooring line with the tanker in order to stabilize the larger vessel. To perform a static tow operation, the tug’s powerful engines would pit their might against the swirling waters of the stormy Atlantic. 

In addition to pounding rain, and gale-force winds, the storm also caused enormous swells in the surrounding ocean. In the early hours of Sunday, May 26th, appearing as a hill-like bulge on the surface of the water, a massive swell engulfed the Jascon-4, flinging the tug on its side as if it were a toy. A moment later, before the tug could right itself, a second swell flipped it upside down, and the entire craft then disappeared into the churning dark waters with its entire crew of 12 still onboard.

Rude Awakening 

Harrison Okene was a 29 year-old Nigerian, not a seaman, per se; he was, however, employed as the cook aboard the Jascon-4. This wasn’t his first rodeo, either. As a static towing vessel, it was fairly standard for them to be called in the stormiest of conditions. Ships meant to rescue other ships are built to a more rugged standard, and this was true of the Jascon-4. Of course Okene knew the risks, as did the entire crew, there were plenty of hazards on the job. Sinking or wrecking probably seemed less likely than succumbing to a tanker explosion or a violent death at the hands of pirates. In fact, pirates were such an active threat in the region that it was protocol for the crew of the Jascon-4 to lock themselves in their cabins when at rest as a safety measure. 

Because he was not a sailor, but a cook, Okene had a daily routine aboard the ship which operated on a slightly different schedule from other members of the crew. Meals were served at set times, the crew would need to be ready to make the most of the daylight hours, and so it was customary for Okene to rise before the others. The Jascon-4 was getting knocked about by the ocean, but for Okene, this was normal. He had his sea-legs under him and he was long past any notion of debilitating seasickness. 

For Okene, when he rose early on that May morning, it was the beginning of just another day. True, it was a Sunday, but he would still be required to cook three meals for the crew as he would any other day. Also, he had his own morning routine, which was why he was up early. The first thing he did upon waking was to unlock his cabin door and make the short trek down the corridor to the bathroom. He was always the first one up and moving about so he didn’t bother getting dressed before answering nature’s call.

Once he entered the lavatory, he closed the door, sat on a toilet and was immediately dethroned by the ship’s sudden jolt to one side. Before he could orient himself in the stall, the entire vessel rolled, throwing him against what had been the ceiling just a moment before. This second impact flung him through the lavatory door and into the corridor where he scrambled to gain a foothold.

Okene snatched up his drawers and raced for the emergency exit as all the men had been trained to do. Looking up the corridor ahead of him, he saw a small cluster of his shipmates gathered at the escape hatch. But the Jascon-4 had suffered a breach somewhere and was taking on water at an alarming rate. As the vessel shifted during its watery descent, the men clustered at the hatch were washed away by a sudden rush of ocean water from an adjacent corridor. With the way before him now blocked by water, and just having witnessed the ocean swallowing his work buddies whole, Okene came to a screeching halt - but only for the briefest of seconds.

In this moment the only sound he could hear was the beating of his own heart. This was a bad dream, he told himself. He was bound to wake soon. In the meantime, shockingly cold water was chasing him through the passageways of the small ship as the vessel twisted deeper into the Atlantic’s salty embrace; buoyed only by the finite bubbles of air which burst upwards with the movement of the dying ship.

Macabre Water Ballet

Okene’s body had slipped into autopilot in a desperate attempt to save his own life. At several different junctures he was actually carried by the fearsome wash of water as the tug was going through its throes and shudders. He was slammed against the bulkheads, cut and bruised from being flung into stationary objects and floating hazards and then, on the cusp of drowning, he would be briefly heaved into the quickly diminishing pockets of air, before being sucked under again. 

To be sure, throughout the vessel this macabre water ballet was playing out among the other men as they thrashed in the cold abyss. If they were in the hallways they fared little better than their unfortunate co-workers who had been unable to unlock the doors and free themselves from their cabins before the second swell doomed their ship. 

The lights aboard had winked out while Okene was being tumbled about and, as the ship finally determined on an orientation for its descent, he found himself surfacing into a bubble of air in the inky blackness. His hearing gradually returned as he perched in that tiny, temporary safe space. He was now being serenaded by the creaks and groans of the Jascon-4 as its plates and joints reacted to the changes in pressure during its slow plunge. There was a deep tremor throughout the ship and, suddenly, the Jascon-4 settled to rest in the ocean bed.

In the darkness, still hearing the burps and gurgles of water continuing to fill the ship, Okene was able to orient himself. Regardless of wherever he had been trying to get to, he deduced that he had been washed into the lavatory in the engineer’s cabin and the object he was clinging to was the underside of the wall-mounted sink. 

By this time he was almost positive he wasn’t dreaming. 

Biological Imperative

He was in his underwear, with a very limited supply of air, immersed in cold water, in the pitch black, in the bowels of a ship at rest on the bottom of the ocean, with a localized hurricane raging on the surface. He wasn’t sure of the depths but, considering how long it seemed to take for the tug to touch bottom, he might as well have been on the moon. Even if he managed to get free of the ship, he would never reach the surface before drowning with the bends. Okene took stock of his situation and realized that he was already midway through the first of Kubler-Ross’ 5 Stages of Death.

Would he freeze to death? Lose his grip and drown? Succumb from carbon dioxide poisoning? Or would he die from dehydration? (a very ironic death, indeed). From this moment forward, Harrison Okene would need to make peace with his Creator - the end was near.

Still, it’s the biological imperative to stay alive; to fight death…to the death. Okene knew death was coming for him, but he wasn’t going to give his life away. He would take shallow breaths and try to conserve the small amount of oxygen that he had. He would also deal with his most immediate issue which, at that moment, was the relentless cold of the water. 

After a fervent unspoken prayer, Okene dove into the water on a mission to find anything he could use to McGuyver a floating platform which could support his weight. He took several terrifying trips into the outer office where he searched for anything he could grab and drag back on a breath-hold. Hopefully, whatever he brought back would float. He used the sink to prop up one side of his platform, it still floated low in the water under his weight, and only supported his upper body. He would be able to rest a bit, but he was still in contact with the water at all times. Still, it allowed him to maintain some of his body heat. And he’d been particularly fortunate in lucking upon an unopened can of Coke that was bobbing around in the water in the adjoining office. His throat was burning with thirst from the saltwater he’d accidentally ingested.

Now, on his makeshift platform, in a lavatory, rationing himself a soft drink, surrounded by profound and crushing darkness, Okene began reflecting on his life, his family, his relationship with God, and the wretchedness of his current condition. Certainly, he had done something wrong, committed some foul mischief to end up in this situation. 

Gentle Stirrings

Time passed, seeming like eternity creaking by, before Okene gradually became aware of other sounds echoing through the ship’s metal hull. As he listened to the noises he was able to visualize the tug’s interior in his mind and invert it to comprehend what might be happening. The gentle stirrings in the water were not waves, but the sounds of living creatures moving through the ship’s interior. At first there were just echoes of the occasional ripple; sometimes it would be more of a splash. Eventually, he became aware of the sound of the water parting around something larger. Every once in a while it would sound as if the creature had found itself trapped in the tangle of objects strewn everywhere, then there would be brief, frantic splashing as it freed itself. 

He became increasingly conscious of the louder splashing as it would intermittently reverberate through the watery corridors. Surrounded by this maze of gloom and noise, he imagined he could actually see the barracuda that was swimming the passageways of the Jascon-4 and leisurely tearing apart his friends and co-workers. At least he hoped it was a barracuda. Eventually, it would be his turn. He should never have gone to sea. 

He thought of his wife and how he had left her for the ocean, lured there by the pay packet. The moments he had with her were not enough; if he could do it all again he would change everything. He lamented that there in the watery dark he had no means of leaving a message to let his wife know his regrets, his amends, and his final thoughts that could be recovered during the inevitable salvage which would eventually follow.

The Salvage

The tug’s capsize was reported in real time as there were more than a few witnesses to the event, including the crew of the tanker and other ships in the immediate area. It was soon determined that any vessel attempting a rescue so soon after the ship’s foundering was likely to meet the same fate. Efforts to stabilize the tanker were still underway, the weather conditions had not improved, and all attempts at rescue were soon halted. Authorities reported that “The vessel, Jascon-4, which is located some 30 meters under water in an upside down position, has become so unstable that the risk of injury to our rescue divers has become unacceptably high.” Rescue would be impossible while the storm roiled on which meant that a rescue attempt would be impossible. Instead they would await the storm’s end and conduct a salvage operation at that time.

The next day in the papers, it was reported that the 471 gt tugboat Jascon-4 had capsized off the coast of Escravos, Nigeria, while supporting a tanker at a mooring buoy in heavy swells. It was announced that all 12 crew members had perished in the sinking, their families had been informed, and an investigation into the incident had been launched.

The salvage of the Jascon-4 wasn’t going to be a simple task. The tug was about 100 feet underwater; at that depth, divers are typically limited to working for only 20 minutes at a time due to safety concerns. They would need to hire a recovery firm equipped and staffed for such a salvage. Since the tug had come to rest upside down - there was no telling how stable it was or whether it would shift or roll once the divers began their work. To conduct an effective salvage, divers would be required to enter the unstable ship and navigate through a maze of disorienting apertures containing floating hazards; cords and ropes; things in which to become entangled; or objects that could drop on them. Although they had blueprints to guide them, the wreck had transformed the ship into a series of pitch dark warrens into the unknown. Because they were entering a cramped environment, dive teams would consist of only two at a time and they would be supervised and guided by a surface crew.

The divers were employees of a Dutch company, DCN Diving, which had been commissioned for the assignment; they were redeployed from an oilfield where they had been working about 75 miles away. The work was tense and arduous, as they swam gingerly through the wreck retrieving crucial equipment and the bodies of the unfortunate crew. The work was also dangerous, and for that reason  each dive was monitored and directed via video link with the surface crew. 

The divers had retrieved the bodies of several men and transported them to the surface before returning to the wrecked tug for the day’s final dive. 

Distinctly Human

After re-entering the wreck, they continued their search, the light from their equipment illuminating the paper, wires, and debris that washed throughout the murky, flooded maze. While swimming through a tangle of piping, one of the divers felt something ice cold in the darkness gently closing around his wrist and instinctively recoiled in stark terror.

The surface crew which had been guiding the dive and assisting their navigation of the downed vessel via video saw the hand of a submerged victim float lifelessly into frame and just as the dive supervisor asked, “You found one, yeah?” the fingers of the hand became conspicuously alive.

It had been nearly three days since the Jascon-4 had disappeared beneath the waves.

During his nightly phone call with his wife before turning in for bed on the eve of the wreck, they had read the Bible together, as usual. He repeated in his mind the Psalm for the day as she had read it to him. It was his mantra now. Again, he felt regret overcome him as he thought of his wife, whom he loved dearly. Five years they’d been married and had not yet begun to make children, how could he leave her this way? He should have stayed on land where he belonged. 

As Okene sat praying in the darkness, expecting to run out of air at any moment, delirious and on the verge of hallucination, he began to hear a different set of noises. At first he was convinced he was imagining it, or dreaming it somehow, but the distant sound of an anchor breaking the water’s surface and the sounds of metal tools against the ship’s hull were distinctly human. 

He wanted to shout out, but knew he could not spare the oxygen. He listened intently as the divers moved through the upturned corridors and pried open metal doors. He had found a hammer in the murk and used it to pound on the wall to let them know he was alive. He was dismayed to hear the dull thud as it hit the wall; the insulation effectively muffled the sound of the hammer. The movements came closer and just as he knew they would discover him, he heard them turn away; he heard them swimming further down the length of the tug. Then there were no more sounds of divers. 

Last Ditch Effort

The Jascon-4 was a fairly large vessel. Okene was doubtful the divers would return to that area of the ship again, he needed to make his presence known somehow. He couldn’t risk leaving the safety of his air pocket, so he began to remove the insulation from the wall. He slit it and pried it off with the claw of the hammer to reveal the metal beneath. 

Although it seemed like it took a thousand years, the divers did return to the capsized tug. He could hear them, they sounded even further than before. He pounded on the metal wall with the hammer and was again dismayed to find that the sound reverberated around the cabin where he was but was again muffled, this time by the insulation on the wall’s opposite side. Although the divers were close enough now that he could hear their rebreathers, they couldn't hear him through their diving gear and over the sounds from their equipment. It had been more than 60 hours since the capsize; these divers weren’t checking for signs of life, they were there for salvage.

Okene’s heart dropped when he heard the divers once again moving away from his position. He would have to make a last ditch effort to save himself, or die trying. Terrified, but keeping his composure about him, Okene retreated from his makeshift platform. He took one last lungful of what he hoped was still oxygen and then submerged himself underwater and began swimming towards the sounds of the divers. As he approached the closest diver, he did so warily, although his lungs were nearly bursting. Knowing they would not be expecting a survivor, he was mindful not to startle them. He didn’t want to be mistaken for a shark and end up getting shanked in the ribs.

The light from the diver’s gear was temporarily blinding. He heard the other man excitedly exclaim, “I’ve got a live one!” But, no sooner than he had made contact, Okene was forced to swim back to his safe space. 

High Risk

Up top, the surface crew was stunned that they’d found a survivor. Suddenly they went from trying to wrap up their last salvage dive of the day to putting together a last minute rescue operation. And it wasn’t going to be as simple as just snatching him up to the surface and whisking him to the hospital.  Divers won’t usually work at a depth of 100 feet for more than 20 minutes at a time because the pressure will result in a dangerous amount of nitrogen absorbing into the blood, leading to nitrogen narcosis. Nitrogen narcosis presents as grogginess, disorientation and, in extreme cases, will lead to hallucinations, changes in facial appearance, eventual loss of consciousness, convulsions, and death. Considering how long Okene had been at the bottom of the ocean, he was definitely considered at high risk.

The salvage divers used hot water to warm Okene while still inside the dead tug before fitting him with a diving helmet which would supply him with oxygen. They asked him to swim, with their guidance, up to a waiting dive bell which was suspended deep into the water above the Jascon-4. It was crucial that they keep him as calm as possible to minimize added stress on his already overtaxed heart. They were concerned that he would die between his air pocket and the dive bell. But, as you can imagine, Okene was eager to leave. He was more than ready to brave whatever lay between himself and dry land.

The divers gently guided Okene through the tangle of apertures leading to the vast open water and, within a short while, into the chamber’s portal. However, Okene lost consciousness before they reached the dive bell. Fortunately, the divers had no problem transporting him the rest of the way. The dive bell was then winched up to the deck of a waiting ship where it docked with the onboard decompression chamber. Once on the surface, it would take two days for Okene to recover from the ill effects of nitrogen poisoning before he could be released from the decompression. He was then taken to the hospital for evaluation. Days of being submerged in ocean water had damaged his skin, as well. Eventually, Okene had recovered enough to return home to his wife.

The Accidental Aquanaut

Under normal pressure, the oxygen supply in such a confined space would deplete rapidly. Anyone trapped inside such a space would quickly die from carbon dioxide poisoning. However, according to Boyle’s law, due to the effects of pressure outside the submerged ship, any air remaining inside would become compressed, or concentrated, and therefore contain quite a bit more oxygen than it ordinarily would. Even so, after 62 hours, Okene was near the end and would’ve died within another hour or two. 

It was widely reported that locals were demanding to know if Okene used black magic to cause or survive the wreck, or both. This is ironic since he’s been very upfront in crediting God with delivering him from the belly of the whale. He’s become much more of a feature and active in his church than he was previously, yet he is still a very quiet and humble gentleman. 

Although he vowed he would never return to the sea and he has kept that promise in his waking world, while asleep he often finds himself at the bottom of the ocean, in the dark, gasping for breath in a pocket of air.

Harrison Okene is known as the “Accidental Aquanaut” and his underwater misadventure - although inadvertent - holds the record for the longest case of its kind. More precisely, it is the longest documented case of its kind. There have been countless wrecks across the ages and around the world in all kinds of conditions, certainly the only thing unique in Okene’s case is its miraculous ending.