After learning that he had lost two members of his family on the dive, Sommaca said: “She would never have put her daughter’s life or the lives of the other children at risk out of recklessness. Something happened down there.”
Police in the small island archipelago have said they are exploring multiple theories about what took place on the dive, which experts have said would have been challenging even in ideal conditions.
One early theory is that poor visibility may have hampered the dive team’s ability to navigate underwater due to poor visibility and wind speeds on the surface up to 30mph.
Officials have also said they are not ruling out the possibility that one of the divers may have become stuck in the cave, with the rest of the team failing to surface due to an attempt to free them.
Alfonso Bolognini, president of the Italian Society of Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine, explained the risks to the Mail: “At 50 meters of depth in the sea, there are several risks; it’s a real tragedy.
“There are several hypotheses we can make right now: an inadequate breathing mix can create a hyperoxic crisis when there’s an increase in the partial pressure of oxygen in the tissues and blood plasma, which can cause neurological problems.
“Inside a cave at 50 meters of depth, all it takes is a problem for a diver or a panic attack for a diver.” He added: ‘the agitation causes the water to become cloudy and can impair visibility.
“In these cases, the panic component could lead to even fatal errors.
Ex-military diver describes horrors Maldives scuba divers may have endured in cave’s third chamber
