The freediving community has been left in shock as record-breaking freediver Andrea Zuccari is missing, presumed dead after failing to surface from a dive in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt on 28 August.
48-year-old Zuccari had been diving to conduct maintenance on a 50m-deep dive platform, however, failed to surface after his dive, at which point his colleagues alerted the authorities.
He was known to be wearing a backplate and wing and carrying a scooter, and some of the equipment has been recovered during the resulting search, however, his body has not yet been found.
Zuccari, an Italian national born to a Swiss mother, was a former motorcyle racer in his native Italy before moving to Sharm El Sheikh in 2000 and becoming a recreational scuba diving instructor, then later a tech-diving instructor.
In 2006 he took up freediving , going on to break the Swiss record in constant weight freediving without fins in 2007, then later ranking in the top 10 in the AIDA World Championship, held the same year in Sharm.
In 2012, he opened his own popular ‘Freediving World Apnea Centre’ in Sharm El Sheikh, and woulr later go on to break a series of Italian records, including the Italian variable weight freediving no limits record in 2017, with a descent to 185 meters.
Source: Dive Magazine