The Maldives cave diving tragedy, May 2026

[Bill Ryan]

Another small note, though it's not been a 'small' incident by any measure. In the fairly large world of diving, this has been huge.

There have been hundreds of videos and articles (many of them professional and specialized), tens of thousands of comments (many from highly experienced divers), and this has been headline news in Italy for the last 10 days.

Monica Montefalcone, the eldest of the five Italian divers who died in the cave, was not only a University Professor but was also an Italian TV personality.

One scuba diving forum, packed with experts, has an active thread all about this with 1,600 posts. The word 'suicide' (not meant literally — just as a metaphor for the almost inevitable outcome of a cascade of bad decisions — is used often.

No-one can yet fully explain how the heck this could ever have happened.

There's a very well-known book by Sheck Exley, one of the celebrated early pioneers of cave diving, called Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint For Survival. It's the respected 'bible' of Cave Diving Safety 101. This list is copied straight out of the book:




At least 8 of Exley's 10 guidelines were broken, and very possibly all 10. (We don't yet know about #7 and #8.)

The bewildering issue is that the 5 who died were all highly intelligent people. Monica, the university professor, had 4,000 dives under her belt. One was a certified diving instructor, who lived in the Maldives but who had a former career in finance. The other 3 were university researchers and/or students, all experienced divers although they were younger. One was Monica's own daughter.

The lingering question, asked by everyone in the worldwide diving community without intending any disrespect to any of those who died — and it must have been a terrible death, that they all knew was coming before it happened — is this:

How is that such highly intelligent and experienced people all somehow did such an obviously dumb thing?

[happyuk]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
How is that such highly intelligent and experienced people all somehow did such an obviously dumb thing?

I would say that smart people doing dumb things is one of the most normal things in the world — it's not an exception. This is because intelligence is not immunity against egotism, hubris, arrogance, over-confidence etc. Smart people can create sophisticated justifications for dangerous behavior. In this case it was probably a whole of number of psychological tendencies reinforcing each other simulataneously to create a lollapalooza effect.

Expert overconfidence as opposed to ordinary confidence. The danger is when risks become perceived as more controllable than they really are ("this is manageable", "I know what I'm doing", "rules are for less capable people", etc)

Normalization of deviance (this term became famous after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.) It means: abnormal behavior slowly becomes accepted as normal because a catastrophe has not happened yet. A safety protocol gets bent once, nothing bad happens, so bending it feels acceptable, then the boundary shifts permanently.

Social proof/reinforcement inside elite groups. Inside high-performance groups everyone assumes everyone else is competent, disagreement becomes psychologically uinpleasant, and consensus itself is the evidence. Think back to school (or even now!) when the instructor would ask if everybody understands the content on the blackboard while everyone privately has doubts, but everyone sees everyone else acting confident or nodding in agreement.

Incentive-caused blindness. "Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome." People unconsciously avoid conclusions that threaten their income, reputation, prestige, identity, future opportunities etc. The mind selectively notices evidence compatible with desired outcomes.

Commitment escalation. Also called sunk-cost fallacy, or doubling down on a dumb decision. Backing out feels like failure, particularly where considerable sums have been invested into the endeavour or reputations are attached. ("We’ve already come this far!")

Status and identity. This goes further than egotism. "I am an explorer.", "I am elite.", "I keep calm under under pressure.", "I am not afraid of failure", "I am one of the serious people.", etc.

Note that none of these incentives exempt intelligent people, but human psychology can overwhelm intelligence collectively.

[Delight]

Posted by happyuk (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
How is that such highly intelligent and experienced people all somehow did such an obviously dumb thing?

I would say that smart people doing dumb things is one of the most normal things in the world — it's not an exception. This is because intelligence is not immunity against egotism, hubris, arrogance, over-confidence etc. Smart people can create sophisticated justifications for dangerous behavior. In this case it was probably a whole of number of psychological tendencies reinforcing each other simulataneously to create a lollapalooza effect.

Expert overconfidence as opposed to ordinary confidence. The danger is when risks become perceived as more controllable than they really are ("this is manageable", "I know what I'm doing", "rules are for less capable people", etc)

Normalization of deviance (this term became famous after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.) It means: abnormal behavior slowly becomes accepted as normal because a catastrophe has not happened yet. A safety protocol gets bent once, nothing bad happens, so bending it feels acceptable, then the boundary shifts permanently.

Social proof/reinforcement inside elite groups. Inside high-performance groups everyone assumes everyone else is competent, disagreement becomes psychologically uinpleasant, and consensus itself is the evidence. Think back to school (or even now!) when the instructor would ask if everybody understands the content on the blackboard while everyone privately has doubts, but everyone sees everyone else acting confident or nodding in agreement.

Incentive-caused blindness. "Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome." People unconsciously avoid conclusions that threaten their income, reputation, prestige, identity, future opportunities etc. The mind selectively notices evidence compatible with desired outcomes.

Commitment escalation. Also called sunk-cost fallacy, or doubling down on a dumb decision. Backing out feels like failure, particularly where considerable sums have been invested into the endeavour or reputations are attached. ("We’ve already come this far!")

Status and identity. This goes further than egotism. "I am an explorer.", "I am elite.", "I keep calm under under pressure.", "I am not afraid of failure", "I am one of the serious people.", etc.

Note that none of these incentives exempt intelligent people, but human psychology can overwhelm intelligence collectively.

I now always wonder about the :"jab" and its association with LOSS of executive function. Also, who is responsible in a case like this one?

This terrible event reminds me of the submersible implosion that occurred when "common sense" regarding the
physics of the material world was ignored.

AND
Was your post derived from asking AI? You don't give attribution and it does not sound casual. I am only asking because I want to know the source of these rather global statements about behavior.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Delight (here)
Who is responsible in a case like this one?

There's an Italian police investigation right now asking that same question.

But really, it's not clear. This may well have been a 'rogue' dive, the idea possibly suggested by Gianluca Benedetti, who was the Diving Instructor on the boat and in charge of all diving operations. It seems they had no permit to (a) enter the cave or (b) even go that deep, so it may have been all his idea to do this 'quietly' under the pretext of doing a very normal 'recreational dive'.

If so, he would be the responsible party. But that means little now, as he died along with the 4 others.

Posted by Delight (here)
I now always wonder about the :"jab" and its association with LOSS of executive function.

That's a very good point. We've all heard about 'vaccidents', resulting from jab-induced impaired judgment. As best I know, there's been very litle (if any!) medical research done on this.

Connected with that — more below to explain — it's now been revealed (through a leak, as there's no official report yet) that the group of 5 had just 3 hand-held lights between them.

They should have had 3 each, totaling 15. That's universally accepted cave-diving safety practice.

That's close to incomprehensible. That's what a group of 5 ten-year-old kids might have mustered up to go explore an old house in the woods.

In a deep underwater environment, with very limited air and with zero room for any errors, that really is 'suicide' if venturing into a dark cave.

So a consensus is emerging that they surely couldn't have intended to go into the deep cave at all — only to peek into the large cave mouth, not a tight cave at all but more of an open 'cavern', still with plenty of light and no chance of getting lost.

Here's a photo taken by the Finnish rescue team:



One can understand how that'd be an interesting place to dive into, maybe for just a couple of minutes, taking a little fun GoPro video of the team.

But even so, they were very deep and were cutting it fine with their limited air. They'd only have had a few minutes available to them at that depth, maybe 10 at the most and certainly less if ever panicking and breathing hard.

What might have happened is this.

At those depths, what's known as nitrogen narcosis can sneak in. That's an effect on the brain caused by absorption of nitrogen (from the compressed breathing air) under magnified pressure due to the depth.

Divers refer to it as 'being narced', and also as 'the Martini effect', as for many the result can be like being drunk, the same as drinking one Martini on an empty stomach for every 15 meters descended. (And they were 50 meters down.)

The effect on divers is (a) loss of judgment, (b) loss of awareness of danger, and sometimes (c) loss of orientation.

And the problem in a group is that because one cannot talk, it's pretty hard to see if someone else is becoming 'narced' unless they suddenly do something irrational and uncharacteristically dangerous.

Maybe Giorgia, Monica Montefalcone's 23 year old daughter, became 'narced' and suddenly swam off to the end of the cavern to look into the dark narrow cave passage at the end.

Monica would certainly have followed her straight away to pull her back. But then the diving instructor Gianluca would have followed as well, and then without doubt the other two.

Now you have all 5 divers in a small passage, maybe with 'narced' Giorgia at the front kicking up silt, with no-one able to turn round because of all the others. And no-one's able to communicate except with hand signals.

At that point, and please forgive the tragic point being made here, they're all dead people swimming — even though their very limited air hasn't run out yet. When they then fail to find the way back and get dead-ended in the wrong return passage, they all drown one by one. Gianluca tries to save himself, but even he drowns by the time he finds his way back to the initial open cavern.

Looping back to the issue of the 'jab', I'd bet everything I own that zero research has been done on the susceptibility of those who've taken the covid vaxx to nitrogen narcosis when diving. The official report, when it comes, will never have looked into anything like that.

And I'll make a smaller bet that what I suggested above is something very close to what the investigators will discover when they analyze the dive computers and GoPro cameras. It's still awful to think about.

[happyuk]

Posted by Delight (here)

Posted by happyuk (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
How is that such highly intelligent and experienced people all somehow did such an obviously dumb thing?

I would say that smart people doing dumb things is one of the most normal things in the world — it's not an exception. This is because intelligence is not immunity against egotism, hubris, arrogance, over-confidence etc. Smart people can create sophisticated justifications for dangerous behavior. In this case it was probably a whole of number of psychological tendencies reinforcing each other simulataneously to create a lollapalooza effect.

Expert overconfidence as opposed to ordinary confidence. The danger is when risks become perceived as more controllable than they really are ("this is manageable", "I know what I'm doing", "rules are for less capable people", etc)

Normalization of deviance (this term became famous after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.) It means: abnormal behavior slowly becomes accepted as normal because a catastrophe has not happened yet. A safety protocol gets bent once, nothing bad happens, so bending it feels acceptable, then the boundary shifts permanently.

Social proof/reinforcement inside elite groups. Inside high-performance groups everyone assumes everyone else is competent, disagreement becomes psychologically uinpleasant, and consensus itself is the evidence. Think back to school (or even now!) when the instructor would ask if everybody understands the content on the blackboard while everyone privately has doubts, but everyone sees everyone else acting confident or nodding in agreement.

Incentive-caused blindness. "Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome." People unconsciously avoid conclusions that threaten their income, reputation, prestige, identity, future opportunities etc. The mind selectively notices evidence compatible with desired outcomes.

Commitment escalation. Also called sunk-cost fallacy, or doubling down on a dumb decision. Backing out feels like failure, particularly where considerable sums have been invested into the endeavour or reputations are attached. ("We’ve already come this far!")

Status and identity. This goes further than egotism. "I am an explorer.", "I am elite.", "I keep calm under under pressure.", "I am not afraid of failure", "I am one of the serious people.", etc.

Note that none of these incentives exempt intelligent people, but human psychology can overwhelm intelligence collectively.

I now always wonder about the :"jab" and its association with LOSS of executive function. Also, who is responsible in a case like this one?

This terrible event reminds me of the submersible implosion that occurred when "common sense" regarding the
physics of the material world was ignored.

AND
Was your post derived from asking AI? You don't give attribution and it does not sound casual. I am only asking because I want to know the source of these rather global statements about behavior.

No — I wrote it myself. It was heavily influenced by Charlie Munger and his talk on the psychology of human misjudgment. When I first heard this talk some 10 years ago it genuinely changed how I think about intelligence, incentives, and human nature.

I tend to write in a far more structured way when I’m trying to explain ideas clearly, as was my habit in a previous life as an academic, so I understand why it may not sound casual and far more clinical but the ideas and wording are mine.

[Delight]

Posted by happyuk (here)

i tend to write in a far more structured way when i’m trying to explain ideas clearly, as was my habit in a previous life as an academic, so i understand why it may not sound casual and far more clinical but the ideas and wording are mine.

Thanks!!!!

[happyuk]

Posted by Delight (here)

Posted by happyuk (here)

i tend to write in a far more structured way when i’m trying to explain ideas clearly, as was my habit in a previous life as an academic, so i understand why it may not sound casual and far more clinical but the ideas and wording are mine.

Thanks!!!!

You're very welcome I do recommend listening to that talk, even if his terminology to describe common human behaviour is somewhat grandiose.

For example that feeling we as humans get when we think we are missing out on something? It's called Deprival Superreaction Tendency wouldn't you know

[Bill Ryan]

A brief update.

1)
The funeral of University Professor Monica Montefalcone and her daughter Giorgia Sommacal was held in Genoa yesterday. This is still headline news in Italy, and the streets were packed with tens of thousands of people. Below is a 3 hour livestream, which anyone interested can just skip through for a couple of moments to get a feeling of what it was all like.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jFp1Y2DQhJU

2)
The elite Finnish cave rescue divers, Sami Paakkarinen, Jenni Westerlund and Patrik Grönqvist, who were successful in locating and recovering the bodies, have all been formally awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

3)
No-one yet knows exactly the chain of events that caused the five Italians to all die together in the cave. Every new article or video is still getting hundreds of comments from expert divers debating why the heck this could possibly have happened.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
The elite Finnish cave rescue divers, Sami Paakkarinen, Jenni Westerlund and Patrik Grönqvist, who were successful in locating and recovering the bodies, have all been formally awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

From https://yle.fi/a/74-20228979:

Italian president confers medals of honour on Finnish divers

The three Finns were involved in the high-risk recovery of the bodies of five Italian citizens off the coast of the Maldives earlier this month.


Jenni Westerlund was one of the three Finnish divers involved in the operation.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella has conferred the honour of Merit of the Italian Republic on three Finnish divers for their role in recovering the bodies of Italian citizens from the sea near the Maldives islands.

The three Finnish divers are Sami Paaskarinen, Jenni Westerlund, and Patrik Grönqvist. They are all members of the Divers Alert Network (DAN), a global not-for-profit organisation dedicated to scuba diving safety.

They joined the recovery operation earlier this month after a team of Italian divers — including internationally renowned marine researcher Monica Montefalcone as well as her 23-year-old daughter — failed to return from an expedition to explore underwater caves.

Authorities in the Maldives described the operation as "very high risk", with one rescue diver also dying.

Grönqvist told Svenska Yle that receiving such an honour for "a completely ordinary operation" felt a bit strange, but he recognises that their efforts were greatly appreciated in Italy.


Patrik Grönqvist

The Order of Merit of the Italian Republic is the highest-ranking honour and most prestigious order of knighthood awarded by Italy, and it is usually conferred on awardees for endeavours in field such as arts, literature, and humanitarian work.

[Bill Ryan]

Here's a translation of a new article published last week by Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper in Finland. (The original is behind a paywall.) It's very good, featuring an interview with Patrik Grönqvist, one of the team of three Finnish rescue divers that many have described as heroes. (They all refused to accept any compensation for their time and expertise, and for everything they accomplished.)

Read between the lines here, and a whole lot more about the whole recovery mission can be understood.



~~~

Divers Lost in Cave were found in a Small Cramped Space, says diver Patrik Grönqvist

According to the Finnish cave divers, the recovery of the four deceased Italians from the depths went smoothly in cooperation with the authorities. Only the Finns entered the cave itself.

“A hole in the seabed.” That is how diver Patrik Grönqvist describes the opening leading to the Devana Kandu cave in the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean.

“It’s a somewhat different kind of cave from what we’re used to,” Grönqvist told Helsingin Sanomat by phone on Wednesday evening from Vaavu Atoll.

He and two other experienced Finnish cave divers, Sami Paakkarinen and Jenni Westerlund, had just recovered the bodies of two Italian divers from the underwater cave.

The other two victims had already been transported out of the cave during a demanding operation on Tuesday.

Five Italian recreational divers disappeared in the Maldives on Thursday, May 14. They were believed to have entered the cave and drowned.

The environmental organization WWF said the missing individuals included 52-year-old marine biologist Monica Montefalcone from the University of Genoa, her daughter, her student, and a colleague. The fifth victim served as their guide.

On Friday, Paakkarinen’s phone rang. He, Westerlund, and Grönqvist were in Sweden diving in a mine.

The caller was from the international diving safety organization Divers Alert Network. They asked for help.

The small community of Finnish cave divers is well known in the field. In particular, an exceptionally difficult operation carried out in Norway in the spring of 2014 is highly respected.

At that time, Paakkarinen, Grönqvist, and a group of other Finnish divers recovered the bodies of two of their fellow Finnish divers who had died in the Plura cave at a depth of 130 meters.

Norwegian authorities would have left the bodies there because they considered the mission too dangerous.

Grönqvist, Paakkarinen, and Westerlund immediately set off on Friday to drive to Stockholm. They quickly stopped by the grocery store chain ICA to buy shorts.

Grönqvist works as a rescue officer for the Helsinki City Rescue Department. He had to request leave for the trip. It was granted even though staffing at the station was at minimum strength.

On the way to the airport, they learned that there was one more victim.

Maldivian rescue divers had been sent to search for the Italians. One of them had now died.

Only one of the missing Italians had been found.

“That’s when we realized we were really needed.”

On Sunday morning, Grönqvist, Paakkarinen, and Westerlund arrived in Malé, the capital of the Maldives. Planning for the operation began immediately with the local authorities. Representatives from the Italian embassy were also present.

Paakkarinen took on the role of team leader.

By evening, they had already arrived at Vaavu Atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Four people were still missing.

The first dive was carried out on Monday. Grönqvist and Paakkarinen descended into the cave and began searching through it. Grönqvist laid guideline ropes while Paakkarinen documented everything on video. Westerlund coordinated the operation from above near the boats.

Inside the cave it was dark, and they advanced only by the light of their lamps. Nothing could be seen. Grönqvist began to fear that if the Italians had in fact made it out of the cave and drowned only afterward, the bodies might never be found.

There was enormous pressure.

“There was a huge amount of trust placed in us, and the whole world was watching. What if we don’t find anyone?”

They were almost at the far end of the cave when they noticed traces left by divers on the bottom.

Grönqvist and Paakkarinen began following them. They discovered a side tunnel branching off to the left and proceeded into it.

This tunnel headed in almost the same direction as the main passage. They continued for about fifty meters. The tunnel became narrower, rose slightly upward, and ended in a dead end.

First, around a bend, the light from their lamps reflected off a scuba tank.

That was how the victims were found — all four together in a small, dark, cramped space.

The entrance to the cave is at a depth of 55 meters. At the deepest point, Grönqvist and Paakkarinen descended to 70 meters. The bodies were found at around 60 meters.

Grönqvist estimates that the distance from where the victims were found to the cave entrance was about 150 meters.

“That’s not actually a very long distance. But if you can’t see anything in the tunnel and don’t have equipment suited for that environment, then it’s a damn long distance.”

The first two bodies were recovered from the cave on Tuesday.

Before the recovery, Paakkarinen and Grönqvist ran a strong guideline from the surface of the sea all the way to the cave entrance. The victims were carefully attached to it using carabiners.

Divers from the Maldivian Coast Guard and police assisted the Finns. However, they were not allowed to descend deeper than 30 meters after one of their own divers had died.

An underwater drone was also sent to the entrance of the cave. Its video feed allowed people on the boats above to monitor what was happening below.

When everything was ready for lifting the bodies, divers descended from the boats to meet them. They carried the bodies the rest of the way to the surface, because the Finnish divers still had to remain underwater for another two hours to carry out so-called "deco"s, or decompression stops. During these stops, nitrogen leaves the body, helping to prevent decompression sickness.

On Wednesday, the other two bodies were recovered in the same way.

Tuesday’s dive lasted somewhat over three hours, Wednesday’s slightly less.

“It went quite well.”

Patrik Grönqvist does not know why the Italian group had entered the cave. That is what puzzles him. They did not appear to have the equipment required for cave diving.

Beyond that, he cannot speculate about the causes of the diving accident. That was agreed upon with the authorities. A police investigation will be conducted into the incident. The divers will be interviewed for it before leaving Malé, the capital of the Maldives.

According to Grönqvist, a diagram of the cave structure circulating online is inaccurate.

“We’ve tried drawing it ourselves a bit, and it’s really difficult.” He estimates the total length of the cave to be about 150 meters.

“I’ve made three dives there now, and even so I’m still not completely certain how the passages run.”

The first chamber was more than ten meters wide and about five meters high. After that, the cave narrowed into a tunnel that at its lowest point was only one meter high.

The recovery operation has been closely followed by international media. In just a couple of days, thousands of new followers have appeared on Grönqvist’s Instagram account.

The Maldivian authorities had to keep Italian television crews farther away from the recovery site.

The Finns were given permission to give interviews to the Italian media, but for that they had to take a boat out to sea to a location where no nearby resort island could be seen in the background.

The Maldivian economy depends heavily on tourism, and this was reportedly the worst diving accident in the country’s history.

Local people fear that the holiday paradise will now become associated with tragedy.

In Grönqvist’s view, the rescue operation has not been technically difficult for experienced cave divers, but physically and psychologically it has been exhausting.

It has been difficult to get enough sleep. Even though Grönqvist is a professional, it is hard to keep the victims’ final moments in the cave out of his mind.

He praises the local people for their help. Without them, everything would have taken much longer.

On Thursday afternoon, Grönqvist and Sami Paakkarinen will dive into the cave one final time. Their departure had to be postponed because of the strong currents around the atoll. They want to remove the guideline ropes they attached inside the cave so that they will not later tempt anyone else to enter.

In the Maldives, diving below 30 meters is prohibited. Decompression diving is not allowed.

“It’s actually a fine little cave and not technically demanding at all, if you have good equipment and are an experienced cave diver.”

A shark patrols the entrance to the cave, but apparently it is the kind “that doesn’t attack.” On Wednesday, however, they encountered a tiger shark instead. That one can be dangerous.

“At least it was considerably bigger than Sami when it came up next to him. But it left immediately afterward. And we didn’t really have time to focus on it.”

[silver birch]

Paolo is remote viewing the diving accident.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V1D7B0gC0_8

43 min