Mike Lynch yacht sinking: Manslaughter investigation launched after Bayesian tragedy

The passengers who died were probably asleep, prosecutors said, and this is the reason they failed to escape. 

Raffaele Cammarano, the prosecutor of the case, suggested “they were asleep whereas the others weren’t”.

He was asked if there was anyone at the time available to alert them.

Mr Cammarano said: “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.”

All of the bodies onboard the sunken yacht were found in a single cabin which “was not theirs”, a prosecutor told reporters.

Prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said, through a translation provided by the BBC: “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.”

Raffaele Cammarano, the prosecutor of the case, was asked about whether there is a black box and if the hatches were left open.

He said: “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 can’t reply with any certainty about that yet.”

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

Coast guard rear admiral Raffaele Macauda said: “This was an abnormal meteorological condition, and as you can see from the internet there was 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.”

Replying 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 the cabins.

Specialised divers attempting to retrieve the bodies had to deal with “very little visibility due to the weather conditions” and were called in from across the country as part of a search-and-rescue operation which involved “some 70 people” each day.

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 at a press conference about how it is possible that most of the crew managed to survive.

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.”

The Bayesian yacht’s blackbox has not been found, prosecutors have said.

He also refused to reveal any details about whether diver had found that hatches had been left open, allowing water to flood in, or whether the stabilising keel had been raised before the coming storm, making the yacht more unstable.

“We can’t reveal anything at this stage, but the facts will be confirmed by the latr search of the wreckage,” he said.

“The whole matter is sub-judice and we’re waiting for an analysis to confirm the information.”

Autopsies on the victims “have not been done yet”, prosecutors said.

They also said that they do not know the specific timeline of the investigation and said it depends on the owners of the yacht and maritime authorities.

“After all, the wreck is 50 metres down,” they said.

Prosecutors have said they will first need to salvage the wreck oft he Bayesian yacht before knowing exactly what has happened. They said they cannot confirm how long it will take, despite some experts suggesting it will take eight weeks.

“The main priority is retrieving the boat,” a prosectutor told the press conference.

The bodies of six people were recovered from cabins on the left side of the yacht after it had sunk, the chief of the Palermo fire service said.

Girolamo Bentivoglio said, through a translation provided by the BBC, that specialised divers attempting to retrieve the bodies had to deal with “very little visibility due to the weather conditions” and were called in from across the country as part of a search-and-rescue operation which involved “some 70 people” each day.

He added: “The yacht obviously pinned to the right and obviously the (people) tried to go on the other side and then took refuge in their cabins.

“We found four or five bodies in the cabin on the left and there was another one in the third cabin on the left too, and obviously they were in the higher part of the wreck.

“Obviously, emergency procedures were implemented by the divers and obviously we installed cameras and involved further divers.

“And we involved obviously helicopter services and other surveillance cameras.”