{"id":227,"date":"2026-05-23T14:07:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=227"},"modified":"2026-05-23T14:07:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:07:04","slug":"husband-recounts-wifes-tragic-scuba-dive-death-40-years-ago-at-same-maldives-spot-that-killed-5-italian-tourists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=227","title":{"rendered":"Husband recounts wife\u2019s tragic scuba dive death 40 years ago at same Maldives spot that killed 5 Italian tourists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The husband of a woman who died scuba diving over 40 years ago at the same Maldives spot that claimed the lives of five Italian tourists said his wife was only supposed to go to 65 feet, but a guide took her more than 175 feet underwater.<\/p>\n

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Giorgio Bettin\u2019s wife Anna Maria Pistolato, an underwater photographer, dived the same Vaavu Atoll as the group, when the couple were newlyweds on vacation in the Maldives on Jan. 11, 1983.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was supposed to be a short dive, but I never saw my wife alive again,\u201d Bettin told Italy\u2019s Il Gazzettino, as a criminal investigators in Rome probe who made the decision for a group to explore a cave 160 feet underwater May 14 without the required training, permit or equipment.<\/p>\n

Bettin, who didn\u2019t participate, said the plan was for the group of six to dive to 65 feet, but to his horror as he waited on the boat, Pistolato never resurfaced. <\/p>\n

Her body was only found 20 days later, almost unrecognizable.<\/p>\n

He only later learned the group went at least 175 feet underwater, below the country\u2019s legal recreational diving limit of 100 feet \u2014 a decision that was inexplicably made by their guide, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was ordered to pay monetary compensation \u2014 something, honestly, that meant absolutely nothing to me,\u201d said Bettin, who did not reveal the amount. <\/p>\n

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\u201cSince that day, I\u2019ve never gone diving again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bettin\u2019s story comes amid a police investigation into how the group drowned in the \u201cshark cave\u201d and why they made the decision to enter it in the first place. They only had regular oxygen tanks, not the trimix of oxygen, nitrogen, and helium required at those depths.<\/p>\n

Follow the latest on the five divers\u2019 deaths in the Maldives:<\/h2>\n