World3 min(s) read
Published 13:26 20 May 2026 GMT
Last week, five Italian divers died in a cave at least 60 feet underwater in the Maldives, while a culpable murder probe has been launched, some dive experts believe it could have been one grave mistake made by the tourists themselves that killed them.
The bodies of Monica Montefalcone, 52, an associate professor of ecology at the University of Genoa, her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, 20, marine biologist Federico Gualtieri, 31, and researcher Muriel Oddenino, 31, were reported missing after they failed to surface.
The experienced group was eventually found 60 miles south of the capital, Male, inside Thinwana Kandu cave, known locally as “Shark Cave”, which is located around 160 feet underwater.
As autopsies to determine the divers’ causes of death have not yet taken place, many professional divers have conspired online about what caused the tragedy.
Gus Gonzalez, a professional cave diver and scuba instructor who runs a YouTube channel called Dive Talks, made a whole video speculating on the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the group of experienced divers.
In the video, Gonzalez examines the likelihood of the adventurous tourists dying from common causes of scuba-related deaths, including decompression sickness, known as the bends, and nitrous narcosis.
Decompression sickness can kill you when nitrogen bubbles block blood flow to vital organs or the brain, while nitrogen narcosis can be fatal by inducing a "drunken" state of euphoria that leads a diver to make lethal errors, such as losing track of their air or swimming deeper into the abyss.
However, the experienced cave diver believes that the one big mistake that the divers made was “only taking one tank of air,” into a cave.
Exasperated at the lack of knowledge and air the divers entered the cave with, Gonzalez said, “I cannot think of a single person that I know, and I know a lot of cave divers. Not one of the cave divers that I know would accept to go into a cave with a single tank. Not one.”
Although most media outlets claim the group were experienced divers, Gonzalez thinks otherwise. In the video, he said, “If they had the right training, the training itself teaches you the minimum equipment that you need in order to do a cave dive safely. So, they clearly didn't have the training or the right equipment or the right skills."
Referencing both this disaster and the 2018 Thai cave rescue, which saw the successful rescue of 13 boys after days trapped in a cave, Gonzalez said, “You either know how to do it with the right equipment, or you don't. It doesn't matter who you are, Navy Seal or not, you will pay with your life if you don't know what you're doing.”
Despite theories online about how the divers lost their lives, Montefalcone’s husband told an Italian newspaper he believes “something happened down there”, because “She would never have put her daughter’s life or the lives of the other children at risk out of recklessness."
Carlo Sommacal described his wife as “one of the best divers on earth” to La Repubblica daily.
