A team of Finnish cave-divers mobilised by DAN Europe has arrived in the Maldives to carry out a search and recovery mission for the four Italian scuba divers still missing in a deep-lying cave in Vaavu Atoll, and are preparing their equipment to start diving tomorrow morning (18 May).
The Finnish recovery divers are Sami Paakkarinen and Patrik Grönqvist, who became internationally known through the 2016 documentary Diving Into The Unknown, which chronicled the 2014 Plura cave-diving incident in Norway and the recovery mission undertaken by the surviving divers, and Jenni Westerlund.
The Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) has been co-ordinating the search and recovery operation in challenging weather and sea conditions but suspended its operations yesterday (16 May) following the death from decompression illness of one of its divers, Sgt-Major Mohamed Mahudhee.
Mahudhee had been part of an eight-person recovery team that had searched the first two large chambers of the system and had attempted to reach the third through narrow interconnecting passages.
Medical research and insurance body DAN Europe announced yesterday that it had appointed a “task force of specialists” to support the MNDF operation.
It said that the team consisted of “highly specialised professionals in technical diving, cave diving and special operations in overhead environments” with experience “gained through participation in some of the most challenging underwater rescue operations of recent years”.
The Maldives government had said that it expected the three Finnish deep cave-diving specialists to reassess the “high risk” recovery operation and determine whether it could continue safely.
“The accident site presents highly complex operational characteristics,” said DAN Europe CEO Laura Marroni. “Access to the cave is located at a depth of between 55 and 60m, while the underwater system extends for hundreds of metres through multiple chambers and internal passages.
“The victims may be located in areas that are difficult to access, requiring extremely careful planning of every phase of the intervention.”
‘Standard recreational gear’
Meanwhile Albatros Top Boat, the Italian tour operator connected with the Maldives Duke of York liveaboard on which the five Italian scuba divers had been travelling, has denied authorising or knowing about their fatal dive in Devana Kandu near Alimathaa island.
The group had been on a week-long trip along with some 20 other passengers. According to Albatros Top Boat’s legal representative Orietta Stella, their diving was supposed to involve coral-sampling dives at standard depths.
Dives beyond 30m in the Maldives require special permission, and the operator “would never have allowed” a 50m cave penetration, Stella told Italian news outlet Corriere della Sera.
She said that although the victims had been experienced divers, they appeared to have been using standard recreational gear rather than the sort of technical equipment required for deep cave diving.
Stella added that while Albatros Top Boat marketed the Duke of York, it neither owned the vessel nor employed its crew. The boat is also branded through Luxury Yacht Maldives, which along with Albatros is linked with Italian operator Donatella Telli.
Four of the five Italian divers were connected with the University of Genoa, including associate professor of ecology Monica Montefalcone and her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, a biomedical engineering student.
With them were research assistant Muriel Oddenino and marine biology graduate Federico Gualtieri. The fifth diver, and the only one whose body has been found so far, was the operations manager for Luxury Yacht Maldives and Albatros Top Boat Gianluca Benedetti, a diving instructor.
The Italian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that Benedetti’s body was found near the cave entrance by the MNDF recovery team on the evening of the day he went missing.
The University of Genoa has now stated that Prof Montefalcone and Oddenino had been in the Maldives on an official scientific mission to study the effects of climate change on tropical biodiversity in marine environments, but insisted that the fatal dive had been “undertaken privately”. The other divers had not been part of the mission.
A sixth diver, understood to be a female University of Genoa student, had reportedly bailed out of the dive at the last moment, and has been helping with the investigation.
Licence suspended
Prof Montefalcone’s husband Carlo Sommacal has described his wife as a “disciplined diver” who carefully evaluated risks before dives and said that “something must have happened down there”.
The Duke of York caters for technical and rebreather divers as well as those diving within the official 30m Maldives depth limit. The Maldives Ministry of Tourism has suspended the liveaboard’s operating licence ‘indefinitely’ pending the outcome of the investigation into the fatalities. The Rome prosecutor’s office has also opened its own parallel investigation.
“Everyone knows the rules were broken,” veteran Maldives instructor-trainer Shaff Naeem, an advisor to the MNDF, has told Italian news agency ANSA.
Naeem, who says he has carried out more than 50 technical dives in the cave, speculated that a domino effect could have occurred as the divers faced the consequences of factors such as inadequate gas supplies at depth, nitrogen narcosis and poor visibility in an overhead environment.
A yellow weather warning had been issued on the day of the dive, with rough seas and strong winds, and the cave-site is associated with strong currents.
Listen to a recent podcast interview of Sami Paakkarinen by Shaff Naeem
After reading several recent articles, I couldn’t find a definitive conclusion that the four-person team couldn’t have simply been swept away by the current, unnoticed by the boat crew on the surface.
Was there a current?
I can easily imagine they dived to swim through the large opening in the reef in front of the cave entrance. It is not a very good idea at all, certainly not for the first day of their trip, but it’s understandable somehow.
They could have been swept then quite far by the current on their way back from the depth.
It’s much harder to believe that five (or four) more-or-less experienced divers, some with technical diving training, entered a cave at a depth of 60 meters with just one tank. They did so without leaving any visible traces, such as a line from the entrance. Too many “why?” surround the idea that they were/are in a cave.
The bodies have been located inside the cave at a depth of 197 feet.
Hope dies last—hope in the existence of reasoning…
There were others from the liveaboard who were diving in the same location. The dive boat follows the Bubbles of the largest group.
Thanks for the podcast with Sami Paakkarinen. It was well done and you really allowed him to talk. Funnily enough, he was the first person I thought of, when recovery dives were proposed. It’s so good to know that he’s a little bit into psychic events too. And he’s so right about enjoying the dive. What does the sea care of what depth or time you’re trying to achieve? Regards.
Can you post the podcast with Sami Paakkarinen, thx ? That is where to find it ?
It was with Shaff Naeem if that helps!
EP36: Sami Paakkarinen – Inside the Mind of a Cave and Rescue Diver – Shaff Dives You Crazy Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Would it be possible to use robottechnics for the rescuemission ? And in general for the scientificmissions in these dephts and still uncovered passages etc and not to jeopardize human beings?
I really struggle to make sense of this incident.
If reports are correct, 3 of the 5 dead were qualified instructors, 1 had 1000+ dives. Even in a PADI AOW Course the risks of tech diving and wreck / cave diving are highlighted over and over.
It may be that 3 instructors didn’t have cave/ trimex certification but it’s hard to accept that 3 very experienced divers would have been foolish enough to dive to a cave system at 50m+ with basic recreational equipment.
Something doesn’t add up.
Never underestimate the power of hubris… especially in dive instructors… this is how HUNDREDS of people have died in caves… the facts on the Reaper’s Warning is there for a reason…
It doesn’t add up at all. Something happened. The husband even said that his wife was very calculated in her dives and always pre-planned. I don’t think they intended to be in the cave system. Not with recreational gear. And what exactly happened to make the 6th diver bail on the dive?
Evidently his wife was OK with breaking a lot of diving rules too. They knew they were breaking rules. They gambled big and lost.
can you say nitrogen narcosis?
SEE UPDATE 20 MAY: All 4 divers’ bodies recovered from inner chamber
So many questions to be answered. Sounds like no one in the group of 4 had been in that cave system before and that preparations at the depth of ??? – seems like that measurement has been changing b/c so far, I’ve heard 150-160 feet, then 160+ and now 180! That’s multiple bottles of ??? what were they breathing? Presumably air, not Nitrox. How many bottles was each diver carrying? Were any of the divers less experienced? Is the cave or caves a simple in and out or branching, confusing to a group that had (presumably) never been there before? Will be very interested in reading what happened.So many questions to be answered. Sounds like no one in the group of 4 had been in that cave system before and that preparations at the depth of ??? – seems like that measurement has been changing b/c so far, I’ve heard 150-160 feet, then 160+ and now 180! That’s multiple bottles of ??? what were they breathing? Presumably air, not Nitrox. How many bottles was each diver carrying? Were any of the divers less experienced? Is the cave or caves a simple in and out or branching, confusing to a group that had (presumably) never been there before? Will be very interested in reading what happened.