The former boss of the military diver who died trying to recover the bodies of missing tourists from a deep Maldives cave said the rescue team was “not trained” to enter the “unforgiving and dangerous” underwater chambers.
Sgt. Major Mohamed Mahudhee was sent into a dangerous cave system almost 200 feet underwater, searching for five divers who vanished in a scuba-diving accident in the Maldives.
The group of missing divers included instructor Gianluca Benedetti, 44, Muriel Oddenino, 31, Federico Gualtieri, 31, University of Genova lecturer Monica Montefalcone, 52, and her 20-year-old daughter, Giorgia Sommacal.
The divers failed to resurface after entering the cave system, triggering a large-scale recovery operation in one of the region’s most challenging underwater environments.
One rescue diver failed to resurface
According to the BBC, the eight-member Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) rescue team had already cleared two of the cave’s three chambers when 44-year-old Mahudhee – who headed the group – failed to return to the surface.
“Eight rescue divers went into the water today. When they surfaced, they realized Mr. Mahudhee didn’t come up,” a Maldivian government spokesman told the BBC.
The other divers jumped back into the water to search for the man and found that he had blacked out.
The diver was taken to a hospital in critical condition, where he later died, BBC reported.
Mission was too dangerous
Following Mahudhee’s death, former military diver Shafraz Naeem spoke to the Maldives Independent about the dangers tied to the operation.
Naeem, who now works as a consultant for the MNDF, said Mahudhee had once trained under him and described the sergeant major as highly skilled.
“He was a student of mine,” Shafraz told the outlet of his close friend. “He worked under me for a lot of years. He is one of the best.”
‘Not trained to go’
Still, Naeem said the conditions inside the cave required a level of technical preparation the divers allegedly did not have.
“MNDF went on normal air. They are not trained to go,” the expert cave diver said.
According to Naeem, the military had access to advanced rebreather systems donated by the Japanese government, but the team was reportedly still training with the equipment and could not safely use it below certain depths.
“But they are still training on that – they can’t go below 40 metres (about 131 feet) on that,” he told the Maldives Independent.
The cave system reportedly extended far deeper.
“So, they didn’t use it. They are not trained on open-circuit mix gas diving, so they used normal air. And they are not trained to go into caves.”
‘Very unforgiving and dangerous’ caves
Inside underwater cave systems, Naeem explained that the risks increase significantly – divers often have limited visibility, narrow passageways and no direct route to the surface.
“Caves are very unforgiving and dangerous. You need special training,” Naeem said.
The former diver explained that he had visited the Thinwana Kandu cave many times and described the underwater layout in detail.
“It’s a big cavern, the first chamber. The entrance is at around 55 (180 feet), and it gets deeper and deeper. Light penetrates to that first chamber because the opening is at 55 meters,” he said. “After that there’s a tunnel of sorts, a connection that leads onto the second chamber.”
He added that visibility becomes extremely limited deeper inside the cave unless divers carry powerful lighting equipment.
“You cannot see the whole cave unless you have very good lights – you cannot see it from your normal dive light.”
Bodies found deep inside cave system
Authorities later recovered the bodies of the missing tourists from deeper sections of the cave.
Benedetti, the diving instructor, was discovered near the cave entrance while the remaining members of the group were found several days later, trapped about 60 meters (197 feet) in the darkest and most remote chamber.
Naeem shared his own theory about how the tragedy unfolded.
“I have visited those caves countless times. There is no current. They swam into that third cave. They chose to go in there,” Naeem said in a separate interview with the Daily Mail.
“One possibility is the instructor intentionally swam away from the group. Maybe he was running out of air. The rest of the group died in that third chamber and Benedetti died in the passageway trying to get out.”
‘Accident waiting to happen’
Despite criticizing the mission itself, Naeem made clear he was not questioning the abilities of the military divers involved.
“I’m not saying MNDF divers are incapable. They are capable, they are very good,” he said. “Because I know. I trained Mahudhee, who passed away. I am saying they shouldn’t have gone in, knowing that it’s dangerous.”
It was “an accident waiting to happen,” he added.
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