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This webpage is dedicated to the Fontanazzi Cave fatal accident that happened on 4th of January 2017. During the Full Cave diving course run by ITT IANTD Andrzej Kruczkowski, his student Krzysztof Betiuk died. The description of the accident by one of the course members appeared quickly on the Internet (see Attachment 1), which clearly shows that the dive had been planned breaking IANTD standards, namely without the instructor supervision during the first stage of the dive: the descent down to the 20 m of depth in a cave. During this stage of the dive, Krzysztof Betiuk, being alone got lost, then got stuck in a dead end and eventually died there alone. In the official accident report prepared for IANTD by Andrzej Kruczkowski (see Attachment 10), Andrzej admited to plan and conduct the course in such way. Despite numerous protests of the Polish diving community (see Attachment 4 and Attachment 9), IANTD stated that no IANTD standards were broken and Andrzej Kruczkowski’s qualifications were fully restored. Protesting instructors were intimidated by IANTD while Andrzej Kruczkowski has been promoted to the position of Member of Active Board of Advisors IANTD (see Attachment 11).
That’s how IANTD not only swept the accident under the carpet but also removed one of the instructors from the organization for too much engagement in the protest, as an example for others.
Such way of handling the accident in front of all the instructors and all the diving community will lead to complete breakdown of training standards, not only in IANTD and clearly shows that breaking safety standards in IANTD remains unpunished.
Below you can read the full story of our protest from it’s beginning to the end and read all the documents.