Father of missing Seacor Power crewmember seeking to change laws regarding similar disasters
LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) -- Families of the men still missing since the Seacor Power capsized spend much of their time waiting on information from the agencies involved in the investigation. But Scott Daspit, the father of Dylan Daspit, says they've learned not to expect much. He hopes to change that.
"I said from the very beginning, we said something good is going to come out of this," Daspit says.
Scott Daspit and his family have spent the last eight weeks searching for his son Dylan and six other men who have been missing since the Seacor Power lift boat capsized on April 13 in the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone involved has been frustrated by the lack of information.
"And that's one of the issues at hand is every day we get a two-line text from Seacor and it's either bad weather, waiting on this, waiting on that and they'll give us a little idea of what's going," Daspit explains.
Other industries are bound by law to share information in a timely manner with families following a disaster, but Scott says not this industry.
He says, "The laws have to change because, believe it or not, now that all of this has come about, doing research, the aviation industry has a lot of laws on the books. You have to do certain things. Same thing with railroad, not quite as stringent. Marine? There's hardly nothing. And the point is NTSB can say look Seacor, you need to tell the families more of what's going on and there's no law to back it."
Improving the information system is only the first step for Scott. He would like to improve the industry as a whole to make it safer for everyone.
"People have no clue, no clue, what it takes to get a barrel of oil and one MCF of natural gas out of the ground. No clue. They don't have a clue. They know people work offshore. They have no clue the danger involved on a day-to-day basis."
Scott is encouraged by the support they are getting from Louisiana's Congressional delegation. He says he will do whatever it takes, including going to Washington himself, to see that the laws are changed.