CAIRO, Egypt -- The search for Russian divers who failed to resurface in the Red Sea has been suspended for the night. The three divers failed to return to their boat after attempting a particularly deep dive near Elphinstone reef. The rescue operation will resume with day light.
The search for three Russians, two men and a woman, who failed to resurface after a dive in the Red Sea in Egypt will continue in the morning.
Worsening weather conditions and strong currents have been hampering the efforts.
Diving specialists say the divers were equipped with only one oxygen tank each, which is not enough for these kinds of depths.
Tour manager Pavel Shipilin, whose company organised the holiday, said the divers decided to go to 90 metres at their own risk.
”One of them was a diving instructor and he would have known this. Safety rules were ignored, including the Egyptian law that forbids divers from diving deeper than 40 metres," Shipilin said.
"They went diving without telling the guides accompanying them. Otherwise they wouldn't have been allowed to do so,” he added.
Bashir Malsagov from Russian Embassy in Cairo agreed that violation of safety rules was the main cause of the incident.
“Our divers ignore existing safety regulations, they don’t stick to them, often they themselves are to blame for what happens to them,” Malsagov said.
Russia's Foreign Ministry has sent two diplomats to Egypt to look into the incident.
source: http://www.russiatoday.ru/
Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of UnderwaterTimes.com, its staff or its advertisers.
Reader Comments
11 people have commented so far.A diving instructor taking two other people on a one tank dive to 90m ?? And the purpose was this exercise was what -- to commit suicide?
comment# 1 - dick · new york · Nov 22, 2007 @ 3:32pm
suicide!no other word to describe the tragedy
comment# 2 - sebastian · newcastle ,uk · Nov 23, 2007 @ 7:47am
Your article: Russian Deep-sea Divers Missing In Egypt; 'Safety Rules Were Ignored' 1. Divers don't dive with Oxygen 2. How do they know that they went to 90m since they didn’t tell the guides. They haven't returned so nobody could possibly know what they had done.
comment# 3 - Felatio Hornblower · UK · Nov 26, 2007 @ 2:36am
Russian Deep-sea Divers Missing In Egypt; Divers don't dive on Oxygen
comment# 4 - Hugh Jarse · England · Nov 26, 2007 @ 2:37am
Technical divers use oxygen to deco and trimix as bottom mix...
comment# 5 - Nigel · Oranjestad, Aruba · Nov 26, 2007 @ 3:38pm
Is this a new incident, or is it the January 2007 incident being re-released by mistake ????
comment# 6 - Betty Swollocks · England · Nov 27, 2007 @ 3:35am
This is a new incident which occurred Wednesday 21th Nov. There was, according to the Russian report a 4th diver who says they were diving on air (22%) to 90m to break a record? That brings the total to 5 Russians and 1 dutch diver who have lost their life diving in the red sea this year.
comment# 7 - skiver · England · Nov 27, 2007 @ 11:18am
DIVE BEYOND THE LIMITS AT YOUR OWN RISK, BUT THINK ABOUT THE GUY'S WHO HAVE TO TRY AND RESCUE YOU.
comment# 8 - PAUL R. DOWLING. · WALES UK · Nov 30, 2007 @ 6:04am
I dived Elphinstone reef with 12 other guys the day after those 3 guys disappeared. We were told of their disappearance after we came back from our first dive which took place at 6h00 am, a couple of boats were searching for the guys around the reef. We saw 2 teams made of 6 guys equipped with 2 tanks going into the water, and a third team with 2 guys Trimix equipped! ¿90m dive? seems that they were looking forward to reach the famous Elphinstone arch around 60m deep. I took some pictures of this reef, can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/21323877@N07/ When we asked our divermaster if some hyperqualified divers among us could give it a shot we were just answered a clear "NO way!". Sea condition was rough, strong currents, including vertical. We did dot make it below 40m on the first dive. By the way russians divers have a really bad reputation amoung dive operators, specially regarding their strong booz consumption and lack of respect with security measures.
comment# 9 - Raphael · Madrid · Dec 16, 2007 @ 8:16am
Given the difficulty of getting accurate information on incidents like this we should hold back from making dramatic assumptions on what happened. The article mentions the divers with only one oxygen tank, if the writer can't even get that correct, what hope is there for the rest of the story? Divers (unless technical)dive with compressed air, not pure O2. Having said that, Rusians have a terrible reputation for doing stupid things when diving and this incident wouldn't be unusual. Skivers posting about the number of deaths are, I suspect, way off the mark. The real death toll is likely to be significantly higher. As other posters have mentioned, they are under-reported to avoid bad publicity. A recent comment to be by an very experienced guide who spent about a decade in the area - far longer than my two years - information that he got from Egyptian hyperbaric medics suggests under-reporting of about an order of magnitude!
comment# 10 - Peter Loader · London UK · Jan 10, 2008 @ 8:23am
its a damn shame for real
comment# 11 - pouncer · claptown · Jan 19, 2008 @ 3:33am