A team of Czech and Polish divers have found the deepest underwater cave in the Czech Republic. Led by Polish Krzysztof Starnawski, the dive was partly funded by National Geographic. The cave, Hranická Propast, measures 1,325 feet (404 meters) deep, 39 feet deeper than previous record-holder Pozzo del Merro in Italy.
The diving team used a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to explore the vast limestone cavity, successfully reaching its bottom, Tech Times reports.
Starnawski first discovered the cave, the name of which translates to Hranice Abyss, in 1999. Upon diving to the site again in 2014, he reached a depth of 656 feet and initially thought it was the bottom. But a narrow “squeeze passage” led to a second vertical tunnel that Starnawski was able to probe until around 1,260 feet, before he ran out of line.
Determined to finish the job, Starnawski returned to the abyss in 2015 and found that the passage had widened enough to let him enter the pitch-black darkness. He reached a depth of 869 feet and lowered a probe, which went down to 1,214 feet.
Then on September 27, Starnawski and a team dove down to 197 feet and used an ROV to land at the bottom of the cave.
In an interview with National Geographic, Starnawski relates,
I scuba dived down to 200 meters just before the ROV’s deployment to put in the new line for the robot to follow.
He adds, “I came back to the surface, and then we went down with the robot to a depth of 60 meters (197 feet). From there, the team at the surface navigated it, via fiber-optic cable, down along my new line to 200 meters deep. Then it went down to explore the uncharted territory – to the record-breaking depth of 404 meters.”
The Polish diver emphasized that his intention was not to be the deepest diver, but to help the ROV explore the abyss beyond 1,312 feet, which is impossible for a human diver to accomplish. He adds that the depth gauge used by the probe is state-certified and therefore accurate.
