Exploring the Depths: The Sistema Huautla Tragedy Unveiled

Incident Location	Diver Full Names
Mexico, Teotitlan District in the southern state of Oaxaca, Sistema Huautla	Ian Roland

Bill Stone is an ardent explorer whose desire to reach the world below was a passion that consumed him. It went far beyond just an exploration for the sake of data collection through his engineering innovation. In this video, you will discover the exploration of one of the deepest caves in the world by Bill and his teammates, the Sistema Huautla.

Exploring the Sistema Huautla Cave

Sistema Huautla is the deepest cave system in the Western Hemisphere and the tenth-deepest cave in the world. It is located in the Sierra Mazateca mountains in the Teotitlan District in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is about 53 miles (85 km) long and has a depth of 5,120 ft (1,560 m) from the highest known entrance to the lowest reached point.

It has 25 different entrances. It is the twenty-eighth-longest cave, with about 89 km (55 mi) of surveyed passages. In 1965, some cave divers came from Austin, Texas, to explore the Sierra Mazateca mountains. It was during their explorations that they discovered these many large caves. The North American cave divers later came to map the area and found out that those caves were connected with each other.

It was later known that these several entrances were different parts of a single cave system—Sistema Huautla. In 1977, the deepest point of the cave was found, and many underground camps were erected. A tunnel of about 4,347 ft (1,325 m) was found, which is called the San Augustin Sump. An annual expedition, which is part of the Proyecto Espeleologico Sistema Huautla (PESH), was launched at the cave site.

Bill Stone’s Passion

In 1994, Bill Stone and his team members started an expedition to the Huautla Cave and the Sierra Mazateca mountains in southern Mexico. He aspires to reveal the world’s deepest cave through his engineering innovations. He was ready to do anything and go to any length to ensure his vision came to pass.

He was just 23 years old and an engineering student at the University of Texas when he first made his trip to this cave. Ever since then, he has been a determined and diligent member of cave diving associations, especially the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Outing Club, when he was pursuing his Ph.D. in engineering. After earning his doctorate, he stepped down to concentrate his efforts on his projects at his established firm, Stone Aerospace.

He was the leading explorer for NASA’s depth X project, which made a highly advanced AUV to survey the world’s deepest sinkholes, which was Bill’s core value. Bill has always been known for pushing the limits of diving and has led his team to the deepest parts of the earth. He has made about 30 inventions and also made different scuba diving equipment like rebreathers and life support equipment and discovered a way to create underground power. Part of his inventions was the digital vehicle that used a lineup of sonars and complex sensors to map out Wakulla’s Spring Cave. Bill was an inspiration to many people, both within and outside the cave diving community. He really was an exceptional explorer. His major passion for the past eighteen years was to show Huautla Cave as the world’s deepest cave, and he was ready to go to any length to accomplish this. He believed that he was born to map this cave.

Exploration of Huautla Cave

A digital vehicle that used a lineup of sonars and complex sensors to map out Wakalla’s Spring Cave. Bill was an inspiration to many people, both within and outside the cave diving community. He really was an exceptional explorer. His major passion for the past eighteen years was to show Huautla Cave as the world’s deepest cave, and he was ready to go to any length to accomplish this. He believed that he was born to map this cave.

Although he often got into trouble with the locals, who claimed that nobody is supposed to enter the cave, which has been like a sacred place since the days of their ancestors. However, all these things couldn’t stop Bill from entering the Huautla Cave. The passionate Bill Stone was never going to give up on his life’s dream and gathered his friends and fellow divers to form a team.

The team was trained for five weeks to prepare themselves for the exploration of Huautla Cave. Their training was done at Jackson Blue Spring, Florida, which has similar characteristics to Huautla Cave. Some months after their training, Bill’s team of 45 prepared divers took off to Huautla Cave to see their dreams come true. Upon their arrival at the dive site, they spent some days rigging the cave with a rope as long as 2 miles (3 km).

They planned to go beyond the other end of San Augustin Sump, which looks like a bathroom pipe that is under a sink and is filled with silt and stalactites. This sump hasn’t been passable for a very long time, and the local scuba cylinders are easily used up when you get to that depth.

The team members include Kenny Board, a 27-year-old anthropologist; Ian Roland, a 29-year-old mechanic who works with the Royal Air Force; Noel Sloane, a 40-year-old anesthesiologist in Indianapolis; Steve Porter, a 40-year-old property analyst from Minnesota; Dan Brassard, a 46-year-old Texas mathematician; and the only female volunteer amidst them is Barbara Ende.

Bill made Noel, Steve, and Ian the main team. On March 23, they started their expedition with several dives in three days. They went individually to lay guidelines on the cave floor. They decided to do solo diving because they were trying to avoid any form of double fatality in case one got into trouble and the other was trying to help out.

This began to cause panic in the hearts of the team members who had just laid a 750 ft (229 m) line in three days. Bill wanted them to still extend the length of that line further, and he became impatient with Jim, who was the second-most experienced diver among them. He had been using the rebreather that Bill had invented, but at a point, he lost interest in the dive because of his perception of the dive site.

Moving from one challenge to another, even Bill, who had instructed them not to do something, was doing the same thing. All of them were getting anxious and afraid of the expedition because of those pressures. His passion to execute his plan made him not pay attention to the emotions and strengths of his team members. Noel was suspecting something bad might happen during their exploration, but Bill happens to be a tough leader and would not pay attention to any of these things.

Whenever there was any delay, he would not take it easy with them. He just wanted everything to go as they’d planned it, with no chances given for alterations. In the course of their mission, Noel & Steve took a break and went to the town of Huautla while others continued with the work at the dive site. Around 4 p.m.

Ian started diving while Kenny remained at the surface getting some other things done. At about 7 p.m., he had prepared hot water for their tea and was waiting for Ian to return from his dive, which was supposed to take just 2-3 hours. When he did not show up, Kenny became tensed, wondering what had caused the delay. After four hours of waiting, Kenny began to fix the pulley system.

Just like they’d planned if there was any delay for Ian. When it was 6 p.m., Kenny decided to descend the cave’s entrance to rescue one of their team members. Kenny thought that Ian might have been down with hypoglycemia in the air bell since he was an insulin-dependent diabetic patient, but he usually gives more consciousness to his blood sugar levels. He thought Ian could have been waiting for help down in the cave.

So he went inside the cave but returned to the surface alone and reached the camp around 11:30 p.m. He told other team members who were already sleeping that there was a need for them to rescue Ian. But Bill went against Kenny’s idea that the team members were already exhausted from their various activities.

They’ve been pushed beyond their limits with no rest earlier. Bill told him that if Ian was trapped in the air bell, he would be on the other sandbar and in no danger of hypothermia. Bill consulted Don, a team member who was also diabetic, agreed to Bill’s idea and further explained that Ian would be okay with the candy bars he had with him, which would sustain him till the next morning.

Kenny was very frustrated but was eventually calmed down by Don and also agreed that the team needed to rest and they would look for Ian the next morning. So, they all had their rest that night and rose early the next morning, around 5 a.m. They started preparing their rebreathers and called a group of British cave divers who camped very close to them to help them in the rescue operation.

Noel and Steve had also returned to the site. Kenny entered the cave, and within 30 minutes he was already in the air bell. He called out several times to Ian, but no one was responding. He started diving around the sandbar, and there he saw some footprints, which he traced down. He saw Ian at about 10 ft (3 m) at the bottom of the water; he was no longer moving.

His regulator was out of his mouth. Kenny rushed down to meet his friend, thinking he had arrived just in time, but by the time he raised his friend’s arm, it was the arm of a dead man. Kenny was greatly terrified but had to summon courage. Bill also came to the scene of the accident. They checked Ian’s equipment to figure out what went wrong with him; his rebreather was working perfectly. They assumed he had blacked out from insulin shock and later drowned.

They had varying thoughts as to whether to have Ian buried in the cave or bring his body to the surface. They considered the difficulties of pulling his body out of the dangerous cave, and if they left it behind in the cave, they would have issues with the Mexican authorities. After six days, they were able to successfully bring out Ian’s body.

They hauled it over the slabs, up vertical shafts, and through the layers of falling water. They all focused on successfully bringing out the body, forgetting that it was their friend in the body bag. They tried to get away from their emotions, which could cause mistakes as they struggled out of the cave. It was concluded that Ian Roland died of hypoglycemia or something similar since he was a diabetic who had not eaten for some time combined with serious exercise and mental impairment. Ian was a cave diver who was always very careful. He had logged more than 60 hours on the rebreather that they were using for the present expenditure. They took his body to Oaxaca City for an autopsy. The result showed that an insulin-related blackout caused asphyxiation, a restriction of oxygen resulting in hypoxia and affecting the primary tissues and organs. They never knew if his rebreather had an impact on that.

Before your next dive, consider insurance – it’s like having a dive buddy for unexpected challenges. Dive safe, dive covered. Explore options here

FAQ