Breakthrough discovery made by divers searching Mike Lynch’s sunken Bayesian superyacht
Divers investigating how Mike Lynch’s Bayesian superyacht sank have made a shocking discovery.
The rescue team on the water has recovered crucial video surveillance equipment from the British father of two’s boat that sank off the coast of Sicily, Italy on August 19.
Prosecutors investigating the deadly incident deployed six elite divers from the Italian navy, who repeatedly descended to the wreck of the tech giant’s superyacht, which lies more than 50 meters below the surface.
But now they have come across computers and hard drives that will be analyzed in specialized laboratories, a report shows.
The electronic equipment is being examined to see if any data can be retrieved from it, or if there is video footage showing how the yacht sank. This footage could potentially solve the mystery of why and how the ship sank last month.
Mike Lynch and his daughter died when the Bayesian superyacht with 22 people on board sank off the coast of Sicily on August 19
Divers have now recovered crucial video surveillance equipment from the British father of two’s ship
The Bayesian was destroyed in a severe storm, thought to be a meteorological phenomenon called a downburst, which is similar to a small tornado
Researchers will also try to find out if any doors on board the ship were left open, allowing water to flow in. They will use a hyperbaric chamber for this.
Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, and five other people died when the Bayesian storm collapsed during a severe storm, likely a meteorological phenomenon called a downburst, similar to a small tornado.
Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s Antiguan-Canadian chef, Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International bank, his wife Judy, Chris Morvillo, a lawyer for Clifford Chance, and his wife Neda were the other victims of the August 19 tragedy.
According to the autopsy, four victims suffered asphyxiation, probably dying in air bubbles that filled with carbon dioxide.
According to the Italian news agency La Republica, autopsies have been performed on the victims at the Policlinico hospital in Palermo so far. They have shown that there was no water in their lungs, suggesting that they were conscious when the yacht sank.
Fifteen people, including Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, survived when they were rescued by a nearby yacht.
Following the disaster, the captain of the doomed Bayesian, James Cutfield, 51, is being investigated for manslaughter.
Kiwi Cutfield and two other crew members are being investigated by Italian authorities for involvement in a fatal shipwreck and on multiple charges of manslaughter.
Prosecutors are also investigating the ship’s British engineer, Tim Parker-Eaton, 56, and British seaman Matthew Griffith, 22, on the same charges.
Recaldo Thomas, chef on the Bayesian, was the first person rescued after the yacht sank
An Italian news agency claimed that the couple’s lungs “were not full of water, nor were their stomachs or tracheas”
A handout photo provided on August 19 by the Perini Navi Press Office shows the ‘Bayesian’ sailboat in Palermo, Sicily, Italy
However, under the Italian legal system, the fact that someone is under investigation does not mean that they are guilty and charges will not necessarily be filed.
At a press conference at the Termini Imerese courthouse on Saturday, chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said there may have been “behavior that was not entirely in line with the responsibility that everyone had.”
Cartosio added: ‘There could indeed be a case of murder. But this is the beginning of the investigation, we cannot rule out anything… We will establish the responsibility of each element (crew).
‘For me it is likely that there are criminal offences involved, that there could be manslaughter.’
Cartosio’s team will investigate whether the ship’s crew raised the alarm before escaping.
During an earlier press conference, the prosecutor in charge of the case, Raffaele Cammarano, was asked how it was possible that most of the crew had survived. He indicated that the incident happened suddenly and that this question will be part of the investigation.
Cammarano suspected that the passengers may not have been able to escape from the yacht because they were asleep.
Asked why they were not woken up or warned, he said that investigators are trying to find an answer to that, adding that several bodies were found on board the sunken yacht in one cabin, which was not theirs.
Officials plan to raise the Bayesian and bring it ashore to conduct a detailed investigation into how the object sank just 16 minutes into the storm.
The work is being carried out by the ship’s owner, British company Revton, which is controlled by Lynch’s widow Angela Bacares.
They have reportedly commissioned Genoa-based diving company Drafinsub to use sonar and an underwater robot to survey the yacht and determine the best plan to raise it.
The boat trip was originally intended to celebrate Lynch’s acquittal in a fraud case in the US, but then disaster struck.
The entrepreneur, who founded software giant Autonomy in 1996, was cleared in June of large-scale fraud relating to the £8.64bn sale of his company to US firm Hewlett Packard.