ROME (AP) — Italian prosecutors said Saturday they have opened an investigation into negligent vessel sinking and multiple counts of murder after a superyacht capsized in a storm off the coast of Sicily, killing seven people on board, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his daughter.
Termini Imerese prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio confirmed that an investigation had been opened but did not identify any suspects.
“The investigation is still in its early stages. We cannot rule out any developments at this stage,” he told reporters at a news conference.
Cartosio said his team would carefully consider all possible elements of liability, including the Baysian’s captain, crew, supervisory directors and the yacht’s manufacturer.
“In my opinion, there may have been a crime committed, there may have been manslaughter, but we can prove that if we are given time to investigate,” he said.
A key question focusing investigators is why a sailing ship deemed “unsinkable” by Italian shipyard Perini Navi sank while a nearby one remained largely unscathed.
Prosecutors said the event was “extremely rapid” and may have been a “downburst” – a localized, powerful wind that falls from a thunderstorm and spreads quickly when it hits the ground.
Civil defense officials initially said they believed the yacht, with its distinctive 75-meter (246-foot) aluminium mast, had been struck by a waterspout, a type of tornado on the water.
Investigators were also asked why six passengers remained trapped in the hull of the ship when almost all the crew, except for the chef, had been rescued.
Local authorities confirmed that most of the bodies recovered were found in the same part of the yacht – on the left side, closer to the waterline – suggesting that passengers had sought safety in the cabin where the final bubble originated.
Deputy Prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said the passengers were likely asleep, adding that one of the main focuses of the investigation is to establish whether anyone on board had warned them.
Cammarano confirmed that there was one observer in the cockpit.
Rescuers on Friday pulled to shore the last of seven bodies from the 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged luxury yacht, the Baysian, which sank in a storm early Monday near a Mediterranean island south of Italy with 10 crew members and 12 passengers on board.
The seventh victim was Mike Lynch’s daughter, Hannah Lynch, 18, whose body was discovered on Thursday. Lynch had been celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges with family and those who defended him in his US trial. His wife, Angela Bacalez, was one of the 15 survivors.
Rescue teams struggled for four days to find all the bodies, slowly digging their way through the wreck, which lies 50 metres (164 feet) below the surface.
Prosecutors said recovering the Baysian would be crucial to the investigation, but noted it would be a long and complicated process that would be paid for by its owners.
The other five victims are Christopher Morbillo, one of Lynch’s US lawyers, and his wife, Neda; Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley’s London investment banking subsidiary, and his wife, Judy; and yacht chef, Recardo Thomas.
