Latest Mike Lynch Yacht Sinking: Manslaughter Investigation Leads to Bayesian Tragedy and Seven Deaths

An inquiry for manslaughter started on the deaths of the seven people, six of whom were saved from their luxury yacht while the ship was sinking off the coast of Sicily, announced an Italian prosecutor.

Among those rescued were British tech mogul Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah. 

The Termini Imerese prosecution has opened a case hypothesising the crime of shipwreck and of manslaughter but we are only at the initial stage of the inquiry so far," Ambrogio Cartosio, public prosecutor of nearby town Termini Imerese, told a press conference at the town's court on Saturday.

 He said that his office had opened an initial investigation into manslaughter.

He added: "I have to emphasise that the development of the inquiry could actually be of any sort imaginable."

The leading question of investigators is how a sailing vessel that was thought to be "unsinkable" by its maker, Italian shipyard Perini Navi, sank while an accompanying sailboat emerged relatively intact.

The Bayesian sank in a storm off the Sicilian capital of Palermo on Monday during a voyage to celebrate the acquittal of Mr Lynch on fraud charges in the US.

No post-mort-examinations have taken place yet

No details have yet emerged from the examination of the seven bodies, prosecuting authorities in the case have confirmed.

Answering a question on whether post-mortem examinations had been conducted, Raffaele Cammarano told a news conference in Italy: "There are a whole number of preliminary stages to go through before the autopsies."

They said the yacht had been hit by a downburst, and that they would be examining how it could affect one vehicle and not other vessels which were sailing nearby to it, according to the translation of the conference.

The inquiry is currently an Italian affair with local involvement but chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said: "I cannot tell you with any certainty that the inquiry will be exclusively Italian."

He added: "There will be developments, I'm sure, on that score."

 

Jabed Ahmed24 Aug 2024 11:33

31 mins ago 

Key takeaways from the press conference

Italian officials have opened a shipwreck and manslaughter investigation

Public prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said he thought it was "probable that offences were committed" around the sinking of the yacht

Bodies recovered from onboard sunken yacht found in single cabin which "wasn't theirs"

The yacht had been hit by a downburst. Downbursts are powerful winds that descend from a thunderstorm and, on reaching the ground, spread out very fast.

Passengers might not have been able to get out of the yacht because they were asleep.

It is 'probable' that offences were committed, prosecutor says

The prosecutor, Ambrogio Cartosio, stated that he believed there was "a probable that offenses were committed" over the sinking of the yacht.

He told journalists that responsibility for the sinking could reside with the captain, crew, the people in charge of supervision, the ship-builder or others.

He added: "We will establish each element's responsibility – that will be done by the inquiry, so we can't do that prematurely.

"For me, it is probable that offences were committed – that it could be a case of manslaughter – but we can only establish that if you give us the time to investigate.

"Media timing is completely different from that of a prosecutor. We need a minimum amount of time to come to a proper scientific conclusion."

Italian officials still can't tell when the first distress signal was launched.

The maritime director of western Sicily, Rear Admiral Raffaele Macauda, said: "It is normal when there is imminent danger to send distress signals – that is what alerted the port authorities to come to the scene."

"It may be that there was an error in manipulation given the speed of events and it meant that an emergency distress signal was not launched properly or at the right time.

"We can't reconstruct all these details, I'm afraid at the moment."

"We can't say exactly at what time the first distress signal was launched."

He also said "the owners will bear the full cost of the retrieval" of the wreckage and could not estimate how much it would cost.

Prosecutors said passengers were asleep and thus could not get out.

Those passengers probably died while they were sleeping, and that is why they did not get out in time. On being asked why they could not run away, Raffaele Cammarano, prosecutor of the case, suggested, "They were sleeping while the others weren't". He was asked whether at that moment somebody was in a position to alert them.

Prosecution: We cannot explain the reason behind the five bodies found in the same cabin.

All the bodies were found in one cabin on the sunken yacht, which "was not theirs, according to a prosecutor.

As translated by the BBC, prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said that "the bodies were found in a cabin which was not theirs but this doesn't give us any kind of certainty about what happened.

"We have no idea of the reasons for their all being found in the same cabin."

"That is precisely what we are trying to ascertain from the statements made during the interrogation of the survivors – an essential point in the inquiry obviously", Mr Cammarano said.

Italian officials are going to check the safety equipment on the sunken yacht.

Prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano has been asked whether there is a black box and whether the hatchway was open.

"We haven't got exact information about the black box. It was extremely difficult to get inside some of the cabins and the yacht itself.

"The first phase of this inquiry will certainly concentrate on confirming the presence of such things and the retrieval of the bodies.".

"We cannot reply with any certainty concerning that yet."

'Abnormal meteorological conditions' caused a storm

Coast Guard rear admiral Raffaele Macauda said: "This was an abnormal meteorological condition, and as you can see from the internet there were forecasts from midnight to 4am, winds of a strength of five from the north-west and the west, and a storm alert."

"But there wasn't an alert of a tornado."

1 hour ago

Diver says there were many 'obstacles' to get to cabins in Bayesian

Responding to a question asked by a reporter, a diver who went down to the Bayesian said there were many "obstacles" on the way to finding the bodies in cabins.

Specialised divers trying to recover the bodies had to put up with "very little visibility due to the weather conditions" and had been called in from all parts of the country as part of a search-and-rescue operation that involved "some 70 people" every day.

He added: "We can't reveal anything at this stage but the facts will be confirmed by the later search amongst the wreckage."

They asked how most of the crew were able to survive but not the tourists.

The incident happened "really, really suddenly" and the inquiry will look at how so many members of the crew survived, the prosecutor of this specific case has said.

Raffaele Cammarano was asked during a news conference how it's possible that most of the crew survived.

According to a translation, he told a press conference: "We have tried to find out maximum information possible from the crew members or the survivors – all I would say is that the incident happened really, really suddenly.

"The inquiry will begin with the facts of the shipwreck – that is all I can say at the moment.