FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
We have just received the following report from a very reliablesource close to John Bennett.
QUOTE
I'm sorry to say, that as of 12.45 Monday the 15th, while doing asalvage dive, John Bennett went missing.
His buddy on the dive said they were both at 45m on top of the ship,water temp 7c visibility one to two meters no current. They were ona 29% helium mix, bottom time 20 minutes total time 73 minutes tothe surface
His buddy noticed some unusual behavior rom John and gave John theOK sign, to which John returned the OK.
Again his buddy noticed John was acting differently and gave Johnthe up sign. John returned the up sign, so he buddy proceeded to theup line and then noticed John wasn't behind him. Going back to findJohn and seeing no sign of him, the buddy went back to the shot lineand noticed bubbles. Thinking that John was there, the buddyproceeded to ascend. At his deco stop, the buddy noticed bubblesascending past him, but then the bubbles stopped. When the buddy gotout the water, he informed the leader of the job what had happened.Searching the surface, they spotted some bubbles a distance from theboat. The assumption was that John had lost the line until a fewminutes later when the bubbles stopped. When John did not surface,anoter diver proceeded to do a twenty minute search, but there wasno sign of John. A surface search was then performed for hours, butstill no sign of John Bennett.
ENDQUOTE
Further information will be released as received and an officialstatement will be issued soon.
Joe Keiser
