3 divers die in Florida wreck

KEY LARGO, Fla., March 17 (UPI) -- Three divers were killed Friday while exploring a Navy vessel sunk off the Florida Keys.

The three, all friends from New Jersey, were diving off a commercial boat, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. They had made the same trip a day earlier to the USS Spiegel Grove.

Becky Herrin, a spokeswoman for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, said the three went inside the wreck, leaving a fourth man at the entrance. When he started running out of air, he returned to the surface and divers from another boat went down to look for his friends.

The divers brought one man up, but he died soon after reaching the surface. A fire rescue dive team from Key Largo found the bodies of the two missing men but said they were so deep inside the wreck it might be difficult to recover them.

Herrin said the divers might have gotten disoriented.

"These wrecks can be very confusing inside," Herrin said.

The Spiegel Grove, a Navy landing ship dock, was deliberately sunk off Key Largo in 2002 to create an artificial reef.