Cave Freediving?

Question
Hello,
Is cave freediving considered a "legitimate" activity (from the perspective of IANTD/NACD or other relevant organizational bodies?) If so, what kind of additional training and/or equipment would be necessary for one to safely freedive in caverns/caves?

Thank you very much for your consideration and for your input.  

Answer
First, by "legitimate" activity, I'm assuming that you mean an activity which is sanctioned by agencies such as those you've mentioned in the form of an established course and offering training or certification? In that sense, no, freediving into cavern and caves is not a legitimate activity according to training agencies such as the NACD and IANTD. Are divers entering caverns and caves while freediving? Yes. Should they be? My personal opinion is that it is a foolish endeavor regarding safety as well as environmental preservation. Cave diving is an activity in which most people engage for exploration and sight-seeing with the two primary goals being to safely emerge from the activity and to preserve the environment. In order to dive any cavern or cave, additional training is needed to learn the "rules of the road" which consists of proper line management, team procedures including how to exercise courtesy to other cavern/cave diving teams, environmental awareness, equipment management skills, and understanding the risks through "Accident Analysis." Accident Analysis is an ongoing forensic study of cavern and cave diving deaths as a lessons learned project to keep up with changing techniques, training and equipment configurations in order to understand how these pertain to diver deaths so that further like fatalities may be prevented. Currently, the 5 major rules resulting from accident analysis are: 1)Be trained in cavern and cave diving and always dive within the limitations of your training. 2) Always have a continuous guideline to the exit or, preferably, open water. 3) Adhere to the Cave Diver's "Rule of Thirds" in which 1/3 of one's gas supply is used to enter a cavern/cave, 1/3 is available for exit, and 1/3 is kept in reserve for emergencies. 4) Always have 3 light sources; one of which may be the sun for the cavern diver. 5) Never exceed recommended safe depth limits. With these concepts in mind, a freediver entering a cavern or cave is most often not trained for such diving and therefore doesn't fully appreciate the risks involved, hasn't been taught to find the guideline should visibility be lost due to silt or a lost facemask, and is a potential danger to himself or herself and others. Should a freediver employ a guideline, he or she increases the risk of entanglement. It takes lots of practice to develop good line management to run a line from a reel without fouling it or becoming entangled in that line. If a freediver became entangled then the risk of death dramatically increases since there is no air supply that will buy a diver time to correct the problem. A freediver is not accurately able to adhere to a gas management rule of thirds. Even if a freediver who could do a 3 minute breath hold attempted to enter in one minute, exit in one minute and leave one minute in "reserve" there isn't enough time to safely "pad" for emergencies. If diving in a siphon (inward flow) cave, a freediver would have to work harder to swim out increasing the risk of shallow water blackout or drowning. With three light sources being required for safety, a freediver carrying two or three lights increases his or her drag and potential for entanglement. Lastly, with no direct access to the surface, any overhead dive for a freediver will necessitate having to subtract depth in feet from the dive for the sake of the penetration distance. Cavern divers with scuba tanks are limited to 130 feet of combined depth and linear distance for penetration. If a cavern was 50 feet deep, the scuba equipped cavern diver would have to limit the distance into the cavern to 80 feet. Any freediver trying to adjust a dive in such a way would really have to back off the maximum "safe" distance to penetrate due to the lack of redundant air or gas. For anyone participating in such freediving activities, they are probably breaking most, if not all, rules that will help prevent deaths. Since violating just one rule has led to the death of trained cave divers, an untrained freediver is at substantially high risk of death when in a cavern or cave. Untrained divers haven't mastered proper anti-silting techniques and are more likely to lose sight of the exit or become hopelessly lost inside an overhead and with the very limited time a freediver has to successful re-orient to the exit, the risk is multiplied. Freediving in caves also places other divers at risk because a freediver will tend to move faster and is therefore more likely going to become entangled in another team's guideline, possibly cutting it and leaving that team with no link to open water or disturb the visibility for other teams. Caverns and caves tend to be a bit crowded in popular cave areas and someone freediving into a cavern or cave will more likely be "rude" to other teams by violating "good manners" and team protocols. Some beautiful soft cave formations are easily damaged by the untrained hand pulling improperly on the cave structures for propulsion and poor finning techniques and freediving fins can also permanently damage cave formations. What may have taken millions of years to form can be broken in seconds. Finally, since safe cavern and introductory cave diving training is available for the single tank recreational diver, the bungee jumping or Evel Kneivel mentality of the "stuntman" cave freediver places access to certain cave systems in jeopardy and imperils landowner relations by increasing the potential for death and possible negative publicity that may result in trained cave divers losing access to cave systems. The bottom line is that while few places have rules about freediving into caves, the potential for accidents and a chain of negative events jeopardizing the cave community makes the activity of cave freediving unwise.