The husband of a woman who died while scuba diving more than 40 years ago at the same Maldives spot that recently claimed the lives of five Italian tourists has spoken out. He revealed that his wife was only supposed to dive to 65 feet, but a guide took her more than 175 feet underwater.

Giorgio Bettin’s wife, Anna Maria Pistolato, an underwater photographer, dived at the same Vaavu Atoll as the recent group. The couple were newlyweds on vacation in the Maldives on January 11, 1983.

“It was supposed to be a short dive, but I never saw my wife alive again,” Bettin told Italy’s Il Gazzettino. His comments come as criminal investigators in Rome examine who decided to allow a group to explore a cave 160 feet underwater on May 14 without the required training, permit, or equipment.

Bettin, who did not participate in the dive, said the plan was for the group of six to dive to 65 feet. To his horror, as he waited on the boat, Pistolato never resurfaced.

Her body was only found 20 days later, almost unrecognizable.

He later learned that the group had gone at least 175 feet underwater — well below the country’s legal recreational diving limit of 100 feet. He said the decision was inexplicably made by their guide.

“He was ordered to pay monetary compensation — something, honestly, that meant absolutely nothing to me,” Bettin said, without revealing the amount.

“Since that day, I’ve never gone diving again.”

Bettin’s story has resurfaced amid a police investigation into how the group drowned in the “shark cave” and why they decided to enter it in the first place. They were equipped only with regular oxygen tanks, not the trimix of oxygen, nitrogen, and helium required at those depths. According to one of the elite Finnish divers who recovered their remains, with what they had in their scuba tanks, they could have survived at most 10 minutes at that depth.

The Italian tour operator, Albatros, and the University of Genoa — which had commissioned the research that some of the marine biologists were conducting — were quick to state that they had not authorized the deep dive and that it was not part of the planned itinerary.

The circumstances and the aftermath are eerily similar to what happened to Bettin and his wife. He said the way the victims’ families were treated afterward still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

“The first thing they wanted to do the very next day was to ship me off to Padua,” he said. “They found me a return flight and sent me back to Italy while the search operations were still underway.

“They probably didn’t want me to see or know anything.”