Three divers die in a cave accident, Punta Iacco, Palinuro Italy Aug. 2016

[fsardone]

Three divers in a group of 12 failed to surface yesterday morning.
The dive was supposed to be on a wall (imersione in parete) but in this wall a few caves open.
The three missing divers were the most experienced (the owner of the dive operation, instructor, his dive master and an expert customer). It is feared that they entered a cave opening at 50m (the cave was found silted out) and perished inside. There is an air bubble in the cave [my speculation] but it cannot sustain life for this long.

Immersione fatale a Palinuro, 3 sub muoiono in una grotta | VIDEO

Non c'è traccia dei 3 sub di Palinuro nella "bolla d'aria". Ancora dispersi

R.I.P.

 

[Maverick17]

Salerno, Italy?

That's a rough event.

 

[fsardone]

Yes,
it is in the province of Salerno. Looks like a replay of what happened in 2012 in "grotta del sangue" blood cave (nothing sinister but it becomes red at given time due to Iron minerals).

In 2012 open water divers were led into grotta del sangue by a ill prepared guide and entered a muddy branch of the cave, silt out, multiple fatalities. Grotta del Sangue is shallow.

These days is 3 expert (and my guess not cave certified) divers went for a deep cave ...
All is good until silt out or an issue, then training and procedures should kick in for those who have them.

Very sad because, if it will end up as now is happearing to be, it is a lesson learned times and times before.

 

[DevonDiver]

"Expert" is a very relative term. The question is.... where they amply trained and experienced for the actual dive they undertook?

 

[Dan]

RIP

I can't read Italian, so I don't know exactly what gears they used to get into the cave, besides the torch lights, whether they carried & tied lines at the entry point to lead them back out in the case of zero visibility to occur, using double tanks & following the rule of 1/3 air consumption, etc.

 

[fsardone]

I have been reading what was available and nothing came up in term of divers' configuration.

They now found the bodies.

This is high season for diving in Italy, in the month of August all the 12 dive per year divers are diving. These divers were on a single cylinder single dive boat with other nine divers.

My guess is that they also had a single cylinder rec config.
People diving area with caverns like Palinuro, really believe that they can do that without a guideline. They get away with it for a few times/years and then they believe their espertise is enough (normalization of deviance). Finally they have a silt out in an area not completely familiar or deep enough that the delay will exhaust their mis-managed air reserve and you get an accident.

I fully agree that expertise is a relative ... I am cave certified but I do not consider myself an expert cave diver, I only dive there occationally, but the certification gave me knowledge of the accepted rules and the rationale behind those.
If everybody keeps telling you you are an expert and you can do it you end up doing something stupid (resonate with doc deep Andy?).
Also it is difficult to become cave certified in Italy and I believe none of these gentlemen were so certified. Being instructor, owning a dive operation, knowing the area and the caves are all contributing factors.
The linked article suggests that the customer/friend entered and the 2 pro followed to rescue but in my reading this is unsubstantiated.

cheers

Fabio
[edited to clean up a few spelling mistakes ...]

Palinuro, individuati i corpi dei 3 sub Istruttori morti per salvare l’allievo

Google Translate

 

[Dalixa]

They were found Yesterday in a cave at 50m depth called Saletta Cave but there will be difficulty in bringing them to the surface...in the Italian press there is no reference to the type of equipment they used but one of the divers owns a diving business in the area and is a certified instructor, one is his assistant instructor ( these live and work in the area and it is said that they had great knowledge of the cave system) and the third is a diver with many years of experience. It is a tragedy......

 

[Dalixa]

Palinuro, la mappa della Grotta della scaletta

 

[Dalixa]

The above link is an article with a map of the cave system, I agree 100% with Fabio, we Italians have a short memory and take things too lightly instead of learning from past errors... It is very sad

 

[KevinNM]

This reads like an example out of Exley's "Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival". Very sad.