Park service investigates death of deep diver at Lake Mead

The National Park Service is investigating the death of a Utah dive instructor during a deep-water trip to a Hoover Dam relic at the bottom of Lake Mead.

Witnesses told the park service that technical dive instructor Xavier Fleuranceau ran out of air Saturday while diving with a group at a depth of around 350 feet.

His dive partner provided him with an emergency supply of air, and the two headed for the surface, but they were separated when Fleuranceau attempted an emergency ascent, witnesses said.

At 12:47 p.m. Saturday, rangers received a distress call on marine-band radio about a diver floating facedown in the water, said Christie Vanover, spokeswoman for the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Other divers at the lake and emergency responders from the park service and Nevada Department of Wildlife rushed to the scene, but they could not revive the 48-year-old man from Santaquin, Utah, south of Provo.

The incident occurred at the mouth of Black Canyon, just north of Hoover Dam, in one of the deepest parts of Lake Mead. It's a popular spot for advanced divers who like to explore the submerged site of an old plant used during the dam's construction.

Earlier, Fleuranceau's group reportedly dived down to see the wreckage of a privately owned Navy PBY-5A Catalina flying boat that crashed and sank in the lake's Boulder Basin in 1949, Vanover said.

These were not leisurely recreational dives. Anything below 130 feet is generally considered technical diving, which requires additional training in decompression techniques and other skills and often involves the use of special gas mixtures instead of compressed air for breathing.

Steve Schafer trains technical dive instructors and has been diving himself at Lake Mead for the past 20 years.

To descend to a depth of 350 feet is to enter a dangerous, pitch-black world that stretches the limits of even those with advanced technical training, he said.

"It's just a level of diving where there isn't any room for error."

Schafer said he and Fleuranceau had been friends for several years and chatted regularly about diving.

The two saw each other out on the lake Saturday, just as Fleuranceau and company were suiting up to begin their descent.

"I wished them a safe dive, and we went on our way," Schafer said.

A short time later, he and a fellow diver heard the distress call from Fleuranceau's boat and rushed back to pull him from the water and start CPR.

Schafer described Fleuranceau as a happy, outgoing guy and a devoted father of a preteen son, Layne, who was just learning to scuba dive.

"I never saw him in a bad mood," Schafer said.

Others who knew Fleuranceau called him a skilled diver and a talented musician who spoke several languages well enough to work professionally as a translator and technical writer.

"Guitar was really his thing, but I'm not sure what (instrument) he didn't play," said Jill Heinerth, a world-renowned diver, explorer and documentary filmmaker who first met Fleuranceau a little more than a year ago at a dive site in Florida. "He was a guy of very unique talents."

His music now scores two of her films, including a documentary called "We Are Water" set for release at the end of the year.

"We're going to dedicate the film to him," Heinerth said.

Vanover said diving-related deaths are uncommon but not unheard of at Lake Mead. Rangers respond to a fatal diving accident at the park once every other year or so, she said.

Fleuranceau's dive equipment is being inspected as part of the investigation. His cause of death is pending the results of an autopsy.

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal. com or 702-383-0350.