A 55-year-old tourist from California has died during a beginner scuba dive off the Malaysian island of Pulau Tioman — the second introductory-dive fatality near the island in under three weeks.
Mohammed Seyar Musazay, an Afghan civil engineer based in California, was diving with his 24-year-old daughter on Wednesday, 30 September, as part of a Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) session run off Kampung Salang in the north of the island. According to Rompin district police chief Superintendent Sharif Shai Sharif Mondoi, the pair had completed a briefing on the equipment and beach-based practical training before heading out with an instructor at around 11 am.
The group spent roughly 20 minutes at a depth of six metres. As the session was wrapping up, the instructor escorted Musazay's daughter to the surface, then noticed her father struggling. By the time he reached him, the regulator — the mouthpiece that supplies air — had come loose and Musazay was unconscious. He was brought ashore and taken by local boat to the Kampung Tekek Health Clinic, where a medical officer pronounced him dead at 12.40 pm. His body was transferred to Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital in Kuantan for a post-mortem.
The death came just over a fortnight after another tragedy nearby. On 12 September, 65-year-old Indian tourist Sabiya Shiek died after finishing an introductory dive close to Pulau Renggis, a small islet off Tioman's coast. Police said she had removed her gear and was climbing the dive boat's ladder when she slipped and fell back into the sea. She was found unconscious on the sandy seabed about 15 minutes later.
Discover Scuba Diving is the resort-based programme that lets complete beginners dive — often on the same day they decide to try it — without any certification, always with an instructor alongside. It's popular across Southeast Asia because it requires no prior experience, but that also means participants are making quick judgments about operators, briefings and their own fitness with little to go on. Two deaths within a month around one island is unusual and will rightly prompt questions about safety practices among the dive centres there.
For anyone booking a first-time dive in Malaysia or elsewhere, the standard advice applies: check the operator's certification (PADI or SSI affiliation), confirm the instructor-to-participant ratio, be honest on the medical questionnaire, and don't be afraid to surface the dive early if something feels wrong — a good instructor will never object.
Tioman itself remains one of Peninsular Malaysia's most loved island getaways: jungle-covered, car-free in large parts, and a recognised haven for beginner divers thanks to shallow, sheltered sites and easy access from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Its reputation will depend on how thoroughly these incidents are investigated and what, if anything, changes in how intro dives are run.
Dive Magazine
