Overview
- The five Italian divers went missing during a cave dive on May 14 and the final four bodies were recovered last week by specialist Finnish divers contracted by DAN Europe before being repatriated.
- Recovery teams found four bodies together in a dead‑end corridor about 50–60 metres below the surface, a position that led experts to hypothesise a wrong turn, a sandbank ‘illusion’ and rapid loss of air.
- Reports say the group used standard 12‑litre recreational cylinders at depths that exceed the Maldives’ 30‑metre tourist limit, a mismatch that would give divers only about 10 minutes of bottom time at 50–60 metres.
- A Maldivian military diver died from decompression complications during early local recovery attempts, prompting the staged technical recovery by Finnish/DAN Europe teams that also retrieved GoPro footage, dive computers and phones now in investigators’ custody.
- Maldivian authorities have suspended the dive boat’s licence and opened administrative probes while Rome’s prosecutors have launched a manslaughter inquiry and ordered autopsies as device data and footage are analysed to establish sequence, equipment use and responsibility.