A wetsuit containing shark-mangled body parts has yet to be officially identified as the remains of Austrian diver Leopold Mairhuber, who went missing at the Protea Banks dive-site off the Kwa-Zulu Natal coast on 12 April.
DNA samples are still being examined, South African police have told the South Coast Herald.
Mairhuber, 68, a Master Instructor who had carried out more than 2000 dives, was a week into a nine-day SharkSchool course with shark behaviourist Dr Erich Ritter, diving at Protea Banks’ Northern Pinnacle from an African Dive Adventures charter-boat. Underwater visibility was said to have been low but currents were slack and surface conditions good.
Mairhuber had failed to surface with the rest of the group following the unbaited mid-day dive, and the skipper raised the alarm.
An extensive search operation followed, and what were reported to be the remains of a man’s legs and wetsuit were found and recovered by a fishing-boat crew.
A bite pattern in the wetsuit was said to resemble that of a tiger shark, but reports that Mairhuber had disappeared as the result of a shark attack appeared to be premature. There was no indication that the diver had been attacked while alive, as opposed to suffering from some other problem and the body later being scavenged by sharks.
Protea Banks is world-famous for its shark-diving. Bull, tiger, dusky, great and scalloped hammerhead, blacktip and raggedtooth sharks are among species regularly encountered there.
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22-Apr-17
