Maldives tragedy shines light on dangers of cave diving(theguardian.com)

3 pointsby YeGoblynQueenne2 months ago1 comments

Maldives tragedy shines light on dangers of cave diving

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/23/maldives-diving-tragedy-cave-experts-warn-danger-safety

1 comments

For real:

Quick summary:

Cave diving is one of the most dangerous types of diving, along with hard hat commercial diving.

1) The Maldives authorities only had the group permitted for up to 100 feet depth (rec diving), yet it was known that bottom depth was at least 160 ft+.

2) No planned decompression stops with multiple tanks on a line or rope from surface to bottom equipped with regs on tanks, at the ready.

3) Unknown how many flashlights they had, of course, in my experience lights can become rather useless when you encounter too much natural turbidity, or silt stirred typically by dive fins, multiple backups of most everything needed for cave diving, many cave divers have extra side mounted tank on their body, even expensive DPV's (scooters) to give them even more of an edge.

4) Not known they used the dive line or rope which is typically installed from surface all the way into the farthest portion of the cave by the lead diver. It's your way out, especially if you loose flashlight function or visibility from turbidity / silt. In my work, I always had the existing piping / wiring to guide me back to shore, as a majority of my work underwater was at zero visibility in darkness, near or at bottom.

5) Were they all in dry suits or simple wet suits ? Wet suits typically allow less time in cold temps before hypothermia sets in.

6) Were they all trained in frog kick technique to prevent silting up, loosing visibility ? Sometimes all it takes is one mistake, in fact, so many things to manage / be aware of, that all it takes is one mistake among so many factors to end in multi-person tragedy, like this one ended.