The last dive of Sebastian Marczewski

Fatal record attempt to 333 meters

Sebastian Marczewski (*June 3, 1978, † July 6, 2019), called the "Iron Diver", planned a world record dive (OC) in Lake Garda to a depth of 333 meters. The dive took place on the 6th of July. Weekly preparation and good planning gave Sebastian and the team a good feeling.

Sebastian and his team started the preparations for the dive at 5am. And already here the one mistake happened; the mistake should lead to the lethal accident of Sebastian: The support diver for the depth support (200m) was not present for some unknown reason. Thus, there were only support divers for 50m and 100m depth. Nevertheless, the record attempt was started.
At 6:15 am, Sebastian began his dive with the full set of scuba tanks and several deco profiles to cover different scenarios.

Within 13 minutes Sebastian reached the record depth of 333m; he grabbed the depth mark which was attached to the rope and started his ascent. In the meantime, the two support divers went into the water and placed themselves at 50m and 100m depth.

As the helmet camera and dive computer show, Sebastian began his ascent right after reaching the depth of 333m. At this time his breathing rate was calm and steady. The ascent of 157m worked flawless. From then on there is only speculation about what happened exactly: One (or more) of Sebastian stage tanks entangled in the ascending line at a depth of 176 meters. Why this happened is unclear, but there is a guess: The relatively strong deep current - which was probably extremely strong at this time could have pushed Sebastian into the rope. Sebastian has still tried to get away - unfortunately unsuccessful. He got stuck in the rope.

In the meantime, the 100m support diver (with rebreather) had dived to 150m - he saw a motionless light below his position. However, further advance was not possible due to his equipment and gas planning. He gave light signals into the depth, these were not answered. Since he could not dive deeper without risking his own life, and a heavy current made the dive very difficult anyway, he decided to turn back.

After long deco hours, the two divers were out of the water and the authorities were informed about the possible dive accident. Sebastian's body was localized during the day with sonar and recovered at 19:00 with the help of an ROV. The record  badge with the 333m mark was found in one of his pockets.

Thanks to Marcin Pawelczyk from divers24.pl for the information about the last dive of Sebastian Marczewski.