Hannah Lynch, the daughter of tech tycoon Mike Lynch, was found alone in her own cabin onboard the Bayesian superyacht after it suddenly sank amid a freak weather conditions, according to the search and rescue crew.
Five others were recovered from a separate compartment, including her father, after the vessel dropped 50m beneath the surface of the mediterranean, fire service commander Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra told reporters.
Speaking at a press conference in Termini Imerese, close to where the £30million vessel sank in Sicily, Mr Fiandra said the boat had toppled onto its side as it went down.
In a tragic insight into the passengers’ final moments, Mr Fiandra said it became clear to divers sent down to look for survivors that victims had attempted to get to the higher side of the ship where there may have been pockets of air, before they perished.
It’s thought the ship may have been caught in a downburst, a sudden powerful downward plume of wind, though the cause of the catastrophe is yet to be determined, and autopsies on the victims are yet to take place.
The ship’s cook, Ricardo Thomas, was reportedly found in the water close to the wreck site shortly after the vessel sank, with the other six bodies retrieved over the course of this week.
15 other people on the yacht at the time, including Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Becares, were rescued by the crew of a Dutch-registered sailing cruise yacht, according to the vessel’s captain.
Italian authorities are reportedly “investigating shipwreck and multiple counts of culpable manslaughter”, as per The Sun.
Lead prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said alcohol and drug tests had not been carried out on the survivors, but they would be interviewed to discover why seven people lost their lives.
“We are going to discover how much they knew or to what extent all the people were warned,” he said.
Investigators have reportedly been looking through footage and pictures by locals, as well as CCTV footage of the port on the night the vicious storm smashed into British-flagged vessel.
Captain James Cutfield has already been spoken to by police for over two hours this week.
The investigation comes after the yacht’s builders claimed it was “virtually unsinkable”, and alleged human error may have had a part to play in the tragedy.
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