Italian Coast Guard vessels and Lip during a search operation for the sunken luxury yacht Bayesian off the coast of Porticello, Sicily, on Thursday, August 22, 2024.
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Italian prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation into the deaths of British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and six others when their luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily this week.
The Termini Imerese prosecutor’s office, headed by Ambrogio Cartosio, announced the investigation, stating that it was not targeting any specific individuals.
Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah was among those killed when the family’s 56-metre (184-foot) boat, the Bayesian, capsized during a violent storm off Porticello, near Palermo, early Monday.
Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife (owner of the company that owned the Bayesian) and the yacht’s captain.
Captain James Cutfield and other survivors were questioned by the Coast Guard on behalf of the prosecution. None of them have publicly commented on how the ship sank.
Hannah Lynch’s body was found Friday by divers who had been searching the sunken ship for five days. The other five dead passengers were recovered on Wednesday and Thursday, and the body of the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, the only crew member to die, was found on Monday.
Naval experts were puzzled by the sinking. They said a boat like the Bayesian, made by Italian luxury yacht builder Ferrini, should have been able to withstand the storm and would not have sunk so quickly in any case.
