Five Italians, including a university professor and her 20-year-old daughter, have tragically lost their lives during a scuba diving excursion in the Maldives that went horribly wrong, with all members of the group perishing in what officials are calling the country’s biggest diving disaster ever.
The victims — experienced divers Monica Montefalcone, a professor, and her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, along with Federico Gualtieri, Muriel Oddenino, and their instructor Gianluca Benedetti — set out on May 14 to explore a sea cave in the stunning Vaavu Atoll.
None of them survived.
Instructor Gianluca Benedetti’s body was recovered later that same day from the mouth of the cave. The remaining four were discovered deep inside the cave system on May 18 after an intense multi-agency search that was repeatedly hampered by terrible weather and a heartbreaking setback when a Maldivian military diver died during the recovery operation.
The Maldives National Defense Force confirmed the grim find on social media, stating the missing divers had been located and that further dives would be carried out in the coming days to recover the bodies.
A full-scale investigation is now underway to determine exactly what went wrong on this fatal excursion. The group had descended to approximately 50 metres (roughly 164 feet) beneath the surface — a staggering 20 metres deeper than the official recreational diving limit in the Maldives. Anything beyond 40 metres normally requires highly specialized technical training and equipment.
“For recreational and commercial diving, by law, nobody is allowed to go further than 30 meters,” Maldives government chief spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef said on May 18. “And unfortunately, this appears to have happened a lot deeper because even the cave’s mouth is almost 50 meters under.”
The group had boarded the 118-foot luxury liveaboard vessel Duke of York, operated by the Italian tour company Albatros Top Boat. In the wake of the tragedy, the boat’s license has been immediately suspended pending a “thorough investigation,” the Maldives Ministry of Tourism & Civil Aviation announced on May 17. The ministry added: “All necessary action will be taken to ensure full accountability, and tourism businesses and service providers will continue to be held to the standards required of them.”
Shareef ᴀssured the public that “Everything will be looked into.”
According to reports, a lawyer for Albatros Top Boat told Italian media that the company “did not know” the divers planned to exceed the strict 30-metre limit and “would have never allowed it.” The attorney, Orietta Stella, also revealed that the group appeared to be using standard recreational diving equipment rather than the advanced technical gear typically required for deep cave diving. She noted that while Albatros marketed the cruise, the company did not own the Duke of York or employ its crew.
As the search for answers continues, questions are mounting over dive planning, equipment choices, risk ᴀssessment, and whether the group underestimated the powerful currents and extreme conditions inside the notorious Thinwana Kandu cave system — locally known as “Shark Cave.”
This devastating incident has sent shockwaves through the international diving community and cast a dark shadow over the Maldives’ reputation as a diver’s paradise. Families are mourning the loss of loved ones who set off for what should have been the adventure of a lifetime but ended in unimaginable tragedy.
