Finnish diving team may have solved Maldives dive mystery with ‘sand wall illusion’ theory
The group had entered the caves off Vaavu Atoll last Thursday but failed to return to the surface
It has been suggested that the cave divers were sucked into a vast network, where they drowned(Image: Muriel Oddenino/Facebook)
Expert divers from Finland believe they have uncovered how five Italians died after vanishing while exploring an underwater cave system in the Maldives.
The group had entered the caves off Vaavu Atoll last Thursday but failed to return to the surface, prompting a major search operation. The body of their instructor, Gianluca Benedetti, was d iscovered later that day near the cave entrance. The remaining four divers were found on Monday at a depth of around 165ft.
Described as one of the worst diving tragedies in Maldivian history, the incident has baffled investigators, who are now trying to establish how a team of highly experienced divers became fatally trapped.
All five victims have now been identified as:
- Monica Montefalcone , 51 — a respected marine biologist and professor
- Giorgia Sommacal — Monica’s her daughter
- Federico Gualtieri , 31 — a researcher and diver
- Muriel Oddenino — a young researcher
- Gianluca Benedetti , 44 — the group’s Maldives‑based diving instructor, whose body was found first
But the team of expert divers from Finland, who recovered the bodies earlier this week, may have the key to unlocking the mystery as to how the Italians met their demise. The Finnish team has suggested the group may have taken the wrong tunnel on their way out of an underwater cave.
This theory is based on where the pro-divers, working for Dan Europe, a medical and research organisation dedicated to the health and safety of scuba divers, found the remains, in a corridor with a dead end inside the cave complex, according to the Italian outlet La Repubblica daily.
“There was no way out from there,” the company’s CEO, Laura Marroni told the outlet, adding that the recovery team found the cave near Alimatha begins with a first large, very bright cavern with a sandy bottom.
“Visibility, using artificial lighting, was excellent”, the CEO said, despite there being little natural light in the 30 metres long corridor, which leads to a second chamber of the cave, which is a large, round space with no natural light.
“The divers’ bodies were all found inside, as if they had mistaken it for the right one,” the paper said. If they had taken that corridor by mistake, “then it would have been very difficult to return, especially with the limited air supply,” Marroni concluded.
Due to their standard tanks, and at that depth, the Italian divers would have had little time to visit the second cave, according to the CEO.
“We’re talking about 10 minutes, maybe even less,” Marroni estimated. “Realising that the path is the wrong one and having little air, perhaps after going back and forth, is terrifying. Then you breathe quickly, and the air supply decreases.”
An investigation is underway to determine how the Italians were allowed to descend to a depth of nearly 200 feet when the Indian Ocean country permits a maximum depth of 98 feet for tourists, the Daily Mail reports
GoPro cameras and other equipment were recovered by the pro-divers, which Maldivian officials hope can give them a better understanding of how the tragedy unfolded. The bodies of the last two divers, Sommacal and Oddenino, were recovered on Wednesday (May 20).
Investigators are also examining whether the group had adequate lighting and were using an “Ariadne’s thread”, the guide rope considered essential for navigating deep cave systems.
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One line of inquiry centres on whether a powerful, freak current may have swept the divers off course. Alfonso Bolognini, president of the Italian Society of Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine, has suggested the group could have been dragged into a narrow fissure by the so‑called Venturi effect, a surge created when fast‑moving water is forced through a tight channel, generating a strong suction force.
Carlo Sommacal, Monica Montefalcone’s husband, spoke with the media, stating that his wife would have never put her daughter or others at risk, describing her as “one of the best divers in the world”.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t there, and I’m no expert, and from what I’m seeing and reading, even the experts don’t have definite answers but are merely making hypotheses – lots of them,” he told Reuters in a WhatsApp message.
“I don’t know if she had one the other day,” he added, referring to Monica usually had a GoPro when she went diving.” If they find it, maybe from there we can understand what happened.
“She would never have put our daughter’s life or that of others at risk… something must have happened down there. Maybe one of them had trouble, maybe the oxygen tanks, I have no idea.”
