{"id":18608,"date":"2026-05-21T17:21:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/18608\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T17:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:21:15","slug":"italian-divers-who-drowned-in-maldives-may-have-made-tragic-mistake-there-was-no-way-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/18608\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian divers who drowned in Maldives may have made tragic mistake: ‘There was no way out’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The five Italian divers who drowned in the Maldives<\/a> last Thursday may have taken a wrong turn and panicked when in an underwater cave with no clear way out, according to the elite squad sent in to retrieve their bodies.<\/p>\n

The bodies of\u00a0Monica Montefalcone, 52, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, 20,<\/a>\u00a0Muriel Oddenino, 31, and Federico Gualtieri, 31, were found on Monday<\/a> near the mouth of the third and final chamber of the caves in the Vaavu Atoll, at a depth of around 165 feet.<\/p>\n

The body of their diving instructor, Gianluca Benedetti, 44, was found near the entrance to the same chamber.<\/p>\n

Giorgia Sommacal, 20, died in last Thursday\u2019s diving disaster in the Maldives. Giorgia Sommacal \/ Instagram<\/p>\n

The cave system includes a first chamber connected to a second by a corridor about 100 feet long and 10 feet wide,\u00a0reported Italian newspaper La Repubblica<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Once in the second chamber, the entrance to the corridor is hidden by a sandbank, and just above that is the entrance to the third chamber, which is a dead end.<\/p>\n

The group of Italians appears to have entered the third chamber by mistake and panicked when they realized there was no way out<\/a> before running out of oxygen, according to the group of Finnish divers brought in by the research organization DAN Europe, to find them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no way out,\u201d Laura Marroni, CEO of DAN Europe, told La Repubblica.<\/p>\n

If the group took a wrong turn, \u201cit would have been very complex to return, especially with the little supply of air,\u201d Marroni added.<\/p>\n

Muriel Oddenino, 31, was an experienced diver. Muriel Oddenino \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

The group was using standard, 12-liter oxygen cylinders, not suited to depths of below 100 feet, and would have had little time to turn around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about 10 minutes, maybe even less,\u201d said Marroni.<\/p>\n

\u201cRealizing that the road is not right, and having little air maybe after backing down, it terrifies [you],\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Monica Montefalcone, 51, Giorgia\u2019s mother, also died. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you breathe quickly and the air goes down.\u201d<\/p>\n

All five Italians were experienced divers, and the exact reasons they went on such a deep dive without appropriate equipment remains under investigation.<\/p>\n

The elite Finnish divers recovered technical equipment, including GoPro cameras worn by some of the group, which it is hoped will give them a better understanding of the worst diving tragedy in the history of the Maldives.<\/p>\n

Federico Gualtieri, 31, died in last Thursday\u2019s tragedy. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

All five victims were found in an underwater cave. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

The last two bodies were recovered<\/a> on Wednesday, bringing the mission to an end.<\/p>\n

A sixth victim, military diver Sgt. Major Mohamed Mahudhee<\/a> died from underwater compression sickness on Saturday when he tried to find the bodies.<\/p>\n

Despite being \u201cone of the best\u201d divers in the Maldivian National Defense Force, he was not trained for the fatal mission<\/a>, according to his military mentor, Shafraz Naeem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The five Italian divers who drowned in the Maldives last Thursday may have taken a wrong turn and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12595,12094,5,12049,12117,12848,243],"class_list":["post-18608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-deaths","tag-diving","tag-italy","tag-maldives","tag-scuba-divers","tag-search-and-rescue","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}