JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (29 July 2004) -- South African technical diver Nuno Gomes has failed to set a new scuba diving depth record. Diving with seven scuba tanks and assisted by a team of seven divers, Gomes planned to make a 16-minute descent to a record depth of 320 meters (1050 feet), then ascend to a depth of 120 meters within 24 minutes where the first team member was waiting. Eleven hours later, after a series of decompression stops, Gomes was supposed to have surfaced with the new record. But Gomes reached 271 meters, well short of the planned depth of 320 meters and the current record of 313 meters set by renowned technical diver Mark Ellyatt in Thailand on December 18, 2003. Gomes, a 52-year-old civil engineer who set the record for the deepest dive above sea level when he dived to 286m in the Bushman caves in 1996, blamed his failure on a technical problem but did not elaborate. | | Nuno Gomes: Deep but not deep enough The record attempt was organized by the Witts Underwater Club (WUC), which is affiliated with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORK |
