3 unaccounted for after a flooded magnesite mine 'Maria Concordia' dive in Poland

[Hiszpan]

6(5?) persons (2 instructors and 4(3?) trainees) were conducting training dives in the flooded mine. 4(3?) of them came back to the surface and 2 did not surface (an instructor with a trainee). 1 of those who returned to the surface picked up extra tanks and went down again to transport them to those 2 that did not surface. All 3 have not resurfaced and at 1 am the rescue operation was suspended, to be resumed on Monday morning at 7 am.
According to the police, the groups were separated close to a restriction which is encountered at around 14m depth in a side tunnel.

There is an inaccuracy if there were 5 or 6 persons in total in the group hence question marks.

The trainees were qualified for the dive, the training was to further their qualifications (they were not rookies only learning to dive in the overhead).

Visibility is practically zero, the rescue divers could not conduct the search. It was suggested the underwater robot will be used (but that is also predicated on the improved visibility).

Experienced cave divers are heard to be going there from other parts of Poland (among them Krzysztof Starnawski, a renowned cave explorer and dual rebreather diver).

It is rumored that the dive center organising the training was ADDiving from Wroclaw, Poland (website diving )
A screenshot of their training schedule seems to be confirming this finding (Pazdziernik=October, Niedz=Sunday):

Facebook page of the Maria Concordia diving site: Bei Facebook anmelden
A sample YouTube video with a dive conducted there:
News outlets reporting the incident:
News 1
News 2
News 3

 

[Jack Hammer]

Sad news

 

[lowwall]

Maybe it is my imagination, but based on my reading of this forum it appears that Polish tech divers have an unusually high fatal accident rate. For example, since the start of 2020:

Polish fatality in Dahab, Egypt

1 died, 1 ended up in decompression chamber. It was attepmted dive to the depth of 100m. I will post more info as soon as it is released (thread on FB).

scubaboard.com

Polish cave diver critical - Marcilhac-sur-Célé, France

Lot : un plongeur entre la vie et la mort après un accident de spéléologie à Marcilhac-sur-Célé Google translation... Lot: a diver between life and death after a caving accident in Marcilhac-sur-Célé A Polish diver was the victim of an accident, without our knowing the exact cause yet, this...

scubaboard.com

Three dead in Poland last week

3 dead divers in Poland last week: 1. Baltic Sea 2. Piechcin lake 3. Hancza lake Nobody knows why.. Due to interval in diving?

scubaboard.com

Diver dead in flooded magnesite mine in Poland

Wypadek nurkowy w kopalni magnezytu w Sobótce - Nurkowanie Jolly Diver

scubaboard.com

Is there something different about the training there? Or perhaps attitudes? I remember reading an article about Agnieszka (Agnes) Milówka years ago and it seemed to me that everyone knew there was a high likelihood she was going to die in a cave if she continued on her path of solo exploration diving. But she just shrugged it off.

 

[Vicko]

The attitude to safety is different in Europe in general, and there are a lot of Poles diving (theres like 80 of them on my island right now). Couple that with them being a well off nation with disposable income and there is a lot of middle aged, less then capable people trying to achieve records and push boundaries.

 

[AJ]

The attitude to safety is different in Europe in general, and there are a lot of Poles diving (theres like 80 of them on my island right now). Couple that with them being a well off nation with disposable income and there is a lot of middle aged, less then capable people trying to achieve records and push boundaries.

Not in my (western) part of Europe. Maybe this holds some truth for the eastern part of Europe?

 

[Hiszpan]

Maybe it is my imagination, but based on my reading of this forum it appears that Polish tech divers have an unusually high fatal accident rate. For example, since the start of 2020:

Polish fatality in Dahab, Egypt

1 died, 1 ended up in decompression chamber. It was attepmted dive to the depth of 100m. I will post more info as soon as it is released (thread on FB).

scubaboard.com

Polish cave diver critical - Marcilhac-sur-Célé, France

Lot : un plongeur entre la vie et la mort après un accident de spéléologie à Marcilhac-sur-Célé Google translation... Lot: a diver between life and death after a caving accident in Marcilhac-sur-Célé A Polish diver was the victim of an accident, without our knowing the exact cause yet, this...

scubaboard.com

Three dead in Poland last week

3 dead divers in Poland last week: 1. Baltic Sea 2. Piechcin lake 3. Hancza lake Nobody knows why.. Due to interval in diving?

scubaboard.com

Diver dead in flooded magnesite mine in Poland

Wypadek nurkowy w kopalni magnezytu w Sobótce - Nurkowanie Jolly Diver

scubaboard.com

Is there something different about the training there? Or perhaps attitudes? I remember reading an article about Agnieszka (Agnes) Milówka years ago and it seemed to me that everyone knew there was a high likelihood she was going to die in a cave if she continued on her path of solo exploration diving. But she just shrugged it off.

There were at least 2 more this year that I know of. The paucity of information regarding those incidents prevented me from posting any details here. One was the Czech Republic national, another one was a Polish instructor.

 

[Hiszpan]

News 4

They have found 2 out of 3 missing divers (dead). The 3 missing were 2 instructors and the trainee.

 

[ginti]

Sad news, I hope for the best possible outcome for the last missing diver.

I wonder why the course still took place even with such bad conditions. Do you believe it is possible that they entered the water with diveable conditions and come back with no-viz?

 

[AJ]

News 4

They have found 2 out of 3 missing divers (dead). The 3 missing were 2 instructors and the trainee.

Very sad news, there's nothing to die for under water.

Sad news, I hope for the best possible outcome for the last missing diver.

I wonder why the course still took place even with such bad conditions. Do you believe it is possible that they entered the water with diveable conditions and come back with no-viz?

Pure speculation, but maybe they caused it themselves? Not a cave diver myself, but such bad conditions seem a challenge to me. Especially for a novice cave diver.

 

[ginti]

Very sad news, there's nothing to die for under water.


Pure speculation, but maybe they caused it themselves? Not a cave diver myself, but such bad conditions seem a challenge to me. Especially for a novice cave diver.

Such conditions were so horrible that they deleted the rescue operations. They definitely were a massive challenge.

But the dive was part of a course, and three instructors were present, so it seems unrealistic that they made such a mess all alone. Even if the students were not that good, I believe the instructors would have realized it.