In late June 1961, Mr. Keller and a Life journal author, Kenneth MacLeish, dove to a report depth of 728 toes in Lake Maggiore, in Switzerland, on an elaborately constructed platform that allow Mr. Keller experiment along with his combination of gases. At a depth of 350 toes, Mr. MacLeish wrote, Mr. Keller switched to a unique combination of gases he had designed for deeper water.
“There may be barely sufficient ‘air’ to breathe, and it’s bitter chilly,” Mr. MacLeish wrote, “even colder than the ice water wherein we now hover. My enamel itch. I attempt to say OK however can not handle it. Nonetheless, it seems that I can stay on what we’re getting.”
Mr. Keller’s success at Lake Maggiore introduced him monetary help from the Navy. Shell Oil, which was serious about how his analysis may benefit its offshore oil drilling, offered the help ship for the Catalina dive.
Regardless of the deaths on that dive, Mr. Keller and Dr. Albert Buhlmann, the cardiopulmonary specialist who had helped Mr. Keller design his gasoline combination, signed a contract in 1964 with Shell Worldwide Petroleum to proceed their analysis.
“Hannes Keller’s prominence on the planet of deep diving was comparatively temporary however positively daring,” Mr. Hellwarth mentioned in an electronic mail. “His thousand-foot dive was a Houdini-like spectacle, sadly with disastrous penalties.”
Mr. Keller moved on. Within the late Sixties, he and a enterprise associate, Hans Hess, developed a deep-sea diving swimsuit and an aerodynamic ski-racing swimsuit. Over the following few a long time he began a line of computer systems, developed software program applications and created a web-based artwork and picture museum.
Along with his daughter Ethel, Mr. Keller is survived by one other daughter, Leonie Keller; his sons, Fabian and Severin; and two grandchildren. His marriage to Tzuara Keller-Takahashi led to divorce. His second spouse, Esther (Frei) Keller, died in 2017.