A military diver who died during efforts to recover the bodies of missing divers in the Maldives was reportedly not adequately trained for the task, according to a former colleague.
The tragedy began after diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti, 44, Muriel Oddenino, 31, Federico Gualtieri, 31, University of Genova lecturer Monica Montefalcone, 52, and her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, 20, failed to return from a dive in the waters of Vaavu Atoll on 14 May.
As search and recovery operations continued, Sergeant Major Mohamed Mahudhee also died after running into difficulties while taking part in the mission to locate the group.
Mahudhee was among a team of divers deployed to find the missing people. Reports indicate the team had already cleared two of the cave’s three chambers when Mahudhee did not come back to the surface.
A government spokesperson said he was taken to hospital in a critical condition, but later died from his injuries, per the BBC.
Former military diver Shafraz Naeem has since spoken about the risks posed by the cave system and alleged that Mahudhee was not sufficiently trained for the recovery dive.
Naeem, who now works as a consultant for the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), told the Maldives Independent: “He was a student of mine. He worked under me for a lot of years. He is one of the best.
“MNDF went on normal air. They are not trained to go.
“They have rebreathers that the Japanese government donated to them, very good rebreathers, one of the best brands in the world. But they are still training on that – they can’t go below 40 meters on that.
“So they didn’t use it. They are not trained on open-circuit mix gas diving, so they used normal air. And they are not trained to go into caves.”
He said some experienced teams have carried out difficult recoveries on air at significant depths, but stressed that a cave environment introduces a different level of danger.
As Naeem put it: “We also used to go, me and my old team, on air. We’ve taken bodies from even 70 or 80 meters. But those are not from caves – those were from reefs or lagoons. That, you can come up, if something goes wrong or you feel uncomfortable.
“Caves are very unforgiving and dangerous. You need special training.”
He also shared his assessment of what may have happened inside the cave, telling the Daily Mail: “I have visited those caves countless times. There is no current. They swam into that third cave. They chose to go in there.
“I believe the instructor intentionally swam away from the group. Maybe he legged it up before he ran out of air. The rest of the group died in that third chamber and Benedetti died in the passageway trying to get out.”
Benedetti was later found close to the entrance of the Thinwana Kandu cave. The others were recovered days later, on Monday, from deeper within the cave system, at the bottom of the third chamber.
Naeem described the layout and depth of the cave, saying: “It’s a big cavern, the first chamber. The entrance is at around 55, and it gets deeper and deeper. Light penetrates to that first chamber because the opening is at 55 meters.
“After that there’s a tunnel of sorts, a connection that leads onto the second chamber, which starts at 70 meters if I am not wrong and goes on to about 75 or 78 meters – that’s also a big chamber. You cannot see the whole cave unless you have very good lights – you cannot see it from your normal dive light.”
The Maldives National Defence Force has been contacted for comment.