The final report of the Commission of Enquiry set up to investigate last February’s diving tragedy will now be handed in one month later than expected, in May.

The evidence gathering stage has been completed, following an inspection of the hyperbaric chamber last week. However, the CoE says it must, according to law, first issue Salmon letters which contain criticisms of individuals and entities who may be affected by the report.

The Commission is aiming to have those letters issued on or before April 28^th.

“It is important that the recipients of these Salmon letters have as much detail of the criticisms as would allow them to properly make representations if they so wish for our consideration. Unfortunately, those detailed letters cannot be ready before Friday 28 April 2023. Consequently, our ambition to have the report completed by the end of April 2023 cannot be realised,” a statement from the CoE read.

“It is to be regretted that there has been this slippage, but in the interest of fairness to those who may be criticised, it is necessary,” the release further stated.

The Commission first began its work in September of last year, following an incident which happened on February 25, where five divers employed with independent contractor LMCS Limited – Christopher Boodram, Fyzal Kurban, Rishi Nagassar, Kazim Ali Jr and Yusuf Henry – were sucked into the 30 inch-diameter pipeline they were performing maintenance work on.