KAZIM ALI SNR, head of LMCS, the company contracted to repair an undersea pipeline in which four divers died, including his son, told Monday's hearing of the commission of enquiry (CoE) into the tragedy that he would never again carry out such a job.

The CoE resumed after a ten-day break, allowing witnesses to expand orally on their already-submitted witness statements and to be cross-examined.

The hearing at the Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain, was chaired by Jerome Lynch, KC, with Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, as CoE counsel and Gilbert Peterson, SC, representing the Paria Fuel Trading Co Ltd, at whose sealine 36 berth six the tragedy occurred.

Fyzal Kurban, Kazim Ali Jr, Rishi Nagassar and Yusuf Henry died, while Christopher Boodram escaped from the pipe.

[caption id="attachment_989555" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Paria Commission of Enquiry chairman Jerome Lynch, KC,asks a question on Monday at Tower D, Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain. - ROGER JACOB[/caption]

The hearing tried to ascertain the amount and distribution of oil in the ill-fated pipeline, and whether those conditions had caused a deadly phenomenon known as Delta P, when a "differential pressure" could have sucked in the men to their doom.

Ali periodically grimaced in distress as he testified.

Lynch asked Ali, "If you did this job again, whether for Paria or anyone else, would you identify Delta P as a potential risk?"

Smiling fleetingly through his pain, Ali said, "Chief, I'm not going anywhere near this job again."At the start of the hearing, Lynch asked all to treat Ali with empathy, as his son had died. Ali took his oath, his voice shaking.Lynch told him, "Everyone feels your loss. It must be hard for you to have to give evidence. No father wants to see their children die before them, I have my own two sons."

Ali's testimony focused on events before the accident and then what happened afterwards, in terms of hopes for rescue of the trapped men. Ali said after the accident, he quickly surmised the men were in the pipe, especially after diver Andrew Farah had done a seabed inspection and found nothing, leading Ali to assume everything (and everyone) had been sucked into the pipeline.

"Early in the game we realised they weren't all floating around the water."

Ali said he had told Paria's Catherine Balkissoon of his rescue plan, but in reply was told it had to be run by Paria's Mushtaq Mohammed.

[caption id="attachment_989556" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Relatives of the dead LMCS divers listen to the evidence. - ROGER JACOB[/caption]

Lynch asked about the men's air supply.

Ali said, "Until Boodram came out, we didn't even think about air pockets in the line."

Lynch said before Boodram's information, Ali would have estimated each of the five men had one hour of air supply in his scuba tank.

Ali said, "If all five survived, there'll be the use of one bottle each, so they'd have about an hour.

"But it depended on how many survived. The survivors would have a longer time. If one diver had survived, he would h