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BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Diver killed on U-boat expedition
Diver killed on U-boat expedition
A diver has died in an accident off the north-west coast of Ireland.
He was on an exploratory dive to assess the chances of recovering a sunken U-boat 16 miles off Malin Head on the County Donegal coast.
The vessel, which did not see any war action, sank while being towed from Scotland to Londonderry to be scrapped.
Derry City Council plans to raise the Nazi submarine, U-778, currently lying in about 70 metres of water, and house it in a museum.
It is estimated there are about 150 such boats lying off Malin Head, all vivid reminders of the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II.
The council said that "because of the depth of the waters involved, the procedure was expected to be highly technical".
It is understood the man's diving colleagues will try to recover his body on Wednesday.
Derry City councillor Shaun Gallagher paid tribute to the dead man.
"He was a gentle giant and a lovely man - we're just devastated," he said.
"At this stage it's too early to say what happened."
It is the second fatal diving incident off the north-west coast in about two months.
At the end of July, Paul Jackson, a police officer from Humberside, had been looking at wrecks off Tory Island but failed to resurface.
Diver killed on U-boat expedition
A diver has died in an accident off the north-west coast of Ireland.
He was on an exploratory dive to assess the chances of recovering a sunken U-boat 16 miles off Malin Head on the County Donegal coast.
The vessel, which did not see any war action, sank while being towed from Scotland to Londonderry to be scrapped.
Derry City Council plans to raise the Nazi submarine, U-778, currently lying in about 70 metres of water, and house it in a museum.
It is estimated there are about 150 such boats lying off Malin Head, all vivid reminders of the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II.
The council said that "because of the depth of the waters involved, the procedure was expected to be highly technical".
It is understood the man's diving colleagues will try to recover his body on Wednesday.
Derry City councillor Shaun Gallagher paid tribute to the dead man.
"He was a gentle giant and a lovely man - we're just devastated," he said.
"At this stage it's too early to say what happened."
It is the second fatal diving incident off the north-west coast in about two months.
At the end of July, Paul Jackson, a police officer from Humberside, had been looking at wrecks off Tory Island but failed to resurface.