Investigators are considering potential manslaughter as they try to find out what caused the Bayesian superyacht to sink, killing seven people, an Italian prosecutor has said.
Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said “behaviours that were not perfectly in order” may have been behind the number of deaths off the coast of Sicily at a news conference on Saturday.
Investigators will focus on “the extent all the people [on board] were warned” of safety procedures, he said.
But all lines of inquiry are being considered, including the role of the extreme weather that struck the area, he added.
Tributes pour in for youngest victim; superyacht latest
Firefighter Bentivoglio Fiandra revealed that when the emergency call came in at 4.38am on 19 August, the yacht had already sunk and was on its right-hand side around 50m underwater.
As a result those who died “were trying to hide in the cabins on the left-hand side” of the vessel, he said. Alternatively, they could have been asleep, so failed to escape.
Divers found the body of the on-board chef near the vessel first, he added.
Then, a rotating team of rescuers discovered five others inside the yacht – in the first cabin on the left-hand side – and the final one in the third on that side.
Investigators plan to retrieve the shipwreck from the seabed to be able to establish the circumstances in which the yacht capsized, the prosecutor said on Saturday.
And so far there is no indication it was anchored in a bad position.
Water samples have been taken from near the wreckage and so far there is no evidence of dangerous hydrocarbons coming from the yacht, he added.
Autopsies on the victims of the disaster have not yet been carried out, the officials told the media gathered.
Hannah and Mike Lynch
Jonathan and Judy Bloomer
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Who was on superyacht that sank off Sicily?
What we know about disaster
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, was among the seven who died after the superyacht sank in the early hours of Monday.
The others included Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, American lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda, and the yacht’s on-board chef Reclado Thomas.
Mr Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah was the final body divers recovered on Friday. Her mother and his wife Angela Bacares survived the disaster. Their other daughter Esme was not on board and paid tribute to her sister in a family-released statement.
Rescuers bring the final body to shore in Porticello, Sicily on Friday. Pic: Reuters
The family is believed to have organised the trip to celebrate the end of Mr Lynch’s legal troubles.
In July he was cleared of 15 US fraud charges in a case that lasted 12 years and focused on the sale of his company Autonomy to US firm Hewlett Packard in 2011.
Prosecutors claimed he deliberately overstated the value of the firm he founded in 1996. Mr Lynch always denied wrongdoing.
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