ALERT - Faulty PFD valve alleged in high court case

oceanfroggie

oceanfroggie

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Irish Independant - "Wife 'destroyed' after seeing husband drown", news paper reports high court case of drowning tragedy allegedly caused by faulty "Halkey Roberts" valve used in a Baltic PFD.

Irish Times - "Court hears man drowned due to defective lifejacket"

[ QUOTE ]
EXTRACT - The High Court yesterday heard evidence from consulting engineer Joseph O'Sullivan that in his opinion the valve was dangerous and did not comply with EU safety standards. He revealed that in 20 safety tests conducted on the lifejacket in Ireland and the UK, the air valve malfunctioned 13 times. "It is unsafe and dangerous," he said. The court heard that the same jacket and valve is still available on the market.

[/ QUOTE ]Link to maintenance and safety advice on Baltic web site: Baltic Inflateable Life Jackets

Irish Independant
Irish Times

Suggest folk urgently check if they have this valve in their PFDs, and if so get it checked by a suitable agent. A sad case indeed. Will get ours checked on Saturday.
 
Thnaks OF. I have 16 auto Baltics, will check which valve i have. They were serviced 2 weeks ago at €70 each, ouch!

I'm confused about what the problem is. The Iindependent article says the jacket inflated but that only one half of it inflated. So how come the valve is at fault? The valve lets the CO2 out of the gas cylinder into the jacket, and wouldn't control whether the whole LJ inflated or just half of it, would it? So I'm confused. Maybe the journo has just written the story inaccurately. Anyone know the answer? Also it would be good to know if the fault is with the manual or auto Halkey Roberts valves
 
That's why I posted, felt it was important folk knew and can get any effected products checked. Better safe than sorry. We have a load of these on board too. Can't remember which valves we have but I'll be checking on Saturday. I'm sure or hope this reputable manufacturer will make the relevant safety information available.
 
Mind you they dont seem to have issued a safety alert and this tragedy happened in summer 2003!

I'll check mine asap anyway. Thnaks for the info
 
If our lifejackets have this valve should we be entitled for a refund? Are these valves faulty?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Mind you they dont seem to have issued a safety alert and this tragedy happened in summer 2003!

[/ QUOTE ]Irish Times "Mr Justice Paul Butler strongly criticised the manufacturers of the life jacket for not issuing a recall after a problem was identified with a faulty valve"

High court Judge awards 1/2 million in case against defendants and criticises them for "lack of lifejacket warning".

RTE Reports "Judge criticises lack of lifejacket warning"

Irish Times Report "Drowned man's wife awarded €519,000"
 
Yeah it's amazing the manuf haven't warned people. This happened 2003.

I'm on my boat today and my 16 Baltic jackets (bought Jan 2004, incidentally) all have United Moulders valves, not Halkey. Phew. My LJs are prof serviced annually and the valves are new anyway
 
The manual inflation valve (the one you can blow into to inflate it) was stuck in an open position so that some of the gas that came out of the cannister vented straight back out. This caused one side of the jacket to inflate and not the other, thus turning the victim onto his face.

See the link below for the ful lreport.
http://www.mcib.ie/reports/?-fromsearch=y&-skiprecords=29&-maxrecords=1

Or simply go to www.mcib.ie/reports and look for the Barracuda report.

Aedan
 
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