Based on the investigative report from DIVE Magazine, here is a summary of the tragedy involving the 5 Italian divers in the Maldives, the fatal rescue attempt, and the subsequent recovery operation.
The Victims
The incident occurred on May 14, 2026, off the Vaavu Atoll. The five Italian victims from the luxury liveaboard Duke of York were:
- Monica Montefalcone (Professor of Ecology at the University of Genoa)
- Giorgia Sommacal (Montefalcone’s daughter)
- Muriel Oddenino (Researcher)
- Federico Gualtieri (Research assistant)
- Gianluca Benedetti (Dive instructor)
Clockwise from top left: Monica Montefalcone, Federico Gualtieri, Gianluca Benedetti, Mohamed Mahudhee, Muriel Oddenino, Giorgia Sommacal
The Tragedy: A Fatal Navigational Error
Though early theories suggested the divers might have been forcefully sucked into the cave by strong tidal currents (the Venturi effect), expert cave divers have largely dismissed this. At 60 meters, daylight is still visible, meaning the team likely entered the deep cave network voluntarily.
First pictures from the cave rescue as one of the team passes through the entrance (Photo: Sami Paakkarinen/DAN Europe)
Instead, the evidence points to a tragic optical illusion and navigational mistake:
- The Cave Layout: The cave has a large entrance at 47 meters leading into a spacious first chamber. This connects via a 30-meter-long S-shaped tunnel to a deeper second chamber (around 60 meters down).
- The Illusion: Near the exit of the second chamber, a large sandbank creates an optical illusion that obscures the true exit path. Furthermore, the divers did not lay a safety guideline.
- The Dead End: When the team tried to leave, they likely got disoriented, potentially worsened by sand/silt being kicked up. They missed the exit corridor and mistakenly swam into a tunnel to the left, which led into a smaller third chamber that was a complete dead end.
- Running Out of Air: The four divers (Montefalcone, Sommacal, Oddenino, and Gualtieri) were found clustered together inside this dead-end tunnel, having exhausted their air supply. Instructor Gianluca Benedetti’s body was recovered on the first day near the entrance of the cave’s first chamber; it is unclear if he was waiting for the others or was the only one to find his way out before running out of air.
Equipment and Gas Violations
The investigation reveals the divers were drastically under-equipped for this environment:
- Three of the divers had a permit to dive to 50 meters for research, but they were using standard 12-liter single tanks filled with regular air.
- At 50–60 meters, the narcotic effects of the gas are severely exaggerated. Furthermore, a single 12-liter tank at that depth provides a safe bottom time of less than 10 minutes. Once the divers panicked and began back-and-forth searching for the exit, their air supply would have depleted almost instantly.
Cave rescue experts Sami Paakkarinen, Jenni Westerlund and Patrik Grönqvist (Photo: DAN Europe)
Rescues and Recoveries
- The First Casualty of the Rescue: Immediately following the disappearance on May 14, a local search was launched. Staff Sergeant Mohamed Mahudhee, a rescue diver with the Maldives National Defense Force, tragically died from severe decompression complications during the initial attempt to locate the divers.
- The International Recovery: To safely navigate the perils of the cave, DAN Europe deployed a highly specialized Finnish cave rescue team consisting of Sami Paakkarinen, Patrik Grönqvist, and Jenni Westerlund.
- The Extraction: On May 18, the Finnish team successfully located the remaining four bodies trapped in the deep dead-end chamber. Utilizing heavy expertise, they systematically recovered the bodies over the next two days (concluding by May 20).
Current Status
A widening culpable homicide (manslaughter) investigation has been launched by prosecutors in Rome. The Genoa Flying Squad has seized the victims’ laptops, phones, and hard drives returned to Italy by a surviving colleague. Italian authorities are currently working with investigators in Malé to analyze the divers’ GoPro’s and dive computers to definitively piece together the final minutes of the dive.
Sketch map (not to scale) showing approximate overhead configuration of the cave and the location of the divers where they were found.
