Bayesian yacht sinking: Divers race to rescue Mike Lynch’s hard drive from boat’s safe on ocean floor
Italian prosecutors continue their investigation after divers recovered video equipment from the luxury yacht
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Divers are racing to retrieve Mike Lynch’s personal hard drives locked in a safe on the ocean floor, according to reports.
Italian newspaper la Repubblica reported that the tech billionaire, whose clients included MI5, the NSA and the Israeli secret service, didn’t trust confidential documents on the cloud and kept two encrypted hard drives in a safe which now lies 49 metres below sea level.
Investigators from Palermo said that no personal effects of the seven victims and 15 survivors have been recovered so far and that surveillance on the sailing ship continues 24 hours a day. They say the only hard drives brought to the surface are those of the ship.
An investigation into manslaughter is set to continue after specialist divers recovered video equipment that could explain how it sank.
Italian prosecutors will continue their probe after a source told Reuters Navy divers recovered parts of the deck, computer material, video surveillance systems, hard drives and various other equipment.
The electronic devices have been sent to specialised labs outside of Sicily to check their condition and possibly recover data, the source added.
Italian navy recover video equipment
Italian Navy divers have recovered video surveillance equipment from the wreckage of billionaire Mike Lynch’s Bayesian superyacht that could explain how it sank.
The British tech tycoon’s boat had been moored near the port of Porticello on 19 August when it sank during the early hours of the morning. It is now lying 50m below the surface.
Among those killed were Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, who had been due to begin studying at Oxford University in September, as well as four other family friends and associates.
Divers hunting for clues on how Mike Lynch’s superyacht sank make discovery
The video equipment recovered could show if the crews left doors open on the Bayesian superyacht, which might have allowed the vessel to flood
What happens now weeks after tragic sinking?
Prosecutors are investigating the captain, New Zealander James Cutfield, and two crew members for possible responsibility in connection with the sinking.
Mr Cutfield is under investigation for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges. Tim Parker Eaton — the engineer who was in charge of securing the yacht’s engine room — and sailor Matthew Griffith — who was on watch duty on the night of the disaster — are now under investigation for the same possible charges, their lawyer said.
Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio, who is heading the investigation, has said his team will consider each possible element of responsibility including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision and the yacht’s manufacturer.
Investigators are focusing on how a sailing vessel deemed “unsinkable” by its manufacturer, Italian shipyard Perini Navi, sank while a nearby sailboat remained largely unscathed. They added raising the Bayesian and examining the yacht for evidence would provide key elements to the investigation.
Maritime director of western Sicily, Rear Admiral Raffaele Macauda of the coastguard, could not confirm how long it would take to retrieve the shipwreck of the sunken yacht, adding recovering the fuel tanks was a “priority for us because it has environmental knock-on effects”.
Special forces divers and robots search Mike Lynch’s sunken Bayesian yacht for clues
Specialist military divers are currently searching the sunken Bayesian yacht for clues as to why it sunk in a freak storm off the coast of Siciliy, killing seven passengers.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s boat had been moored near the port of Porticello on 19 August when it sank during the early hours of the morning, and is now lying 50 metres below the surface of the water.
About six divers from the Italian navy’s Comsubin unit are investigating the superyacht for electronic equipment, which includes data storage and CCTV and to see if doors were left open during the storm.
Holly Evans reports:
Special forces divers and robots search Mike Lynch’s sunken Bayesian yacht for clues
A sonar also being deployed to discover the best way to raise the wreckage from the sea
Chris Morvillo and wife drowned aboard Bayesian
Italian authorities said the first post-mortem examinations on the victims had been carried out on US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda. The results confirmed that the pair had drowned.
Morvillo was a partner at Clifford Chance, a white-collar law firm. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor who investigated the September 11 terror attacks, according to the New York Post.
Investigators hope to recover data on sinking of Bayesian
Navy divers recovered hard drives of the video surveillance system on board the Bayesian hopefully revealing the final moments before the tragic sinking of the superyacht.
In the engine room there were the hard disks that catalogued the parameters regarding the electric and thermal propulsion.
“We hope to be able to read something from the media”, an investigator told La Repubblica. They added “Unfortunately they are standard models that are not resistant to water and pressure”.
There was no black box on board the 700-tonne sailing vessel that sank in minutes. It was not required to have one, as it was not a commercial cruise ship.
'Mike Lynch files may be target for hostile spy agencies’
Divers are searching the sea floor for Mike Lynch’s high-tech hard drives before they can fall into enemy hands reports La Repubblica - Italy’s second-biggest newspaper.
Sources told the paper the disks held: “the great digital archive of the IT entrepreneur whose clients included the British MI5, the American NSA and the Israeli services”.
The Italian newspaper said the “super drives” are protected by “cutting-edge encryption”.
The Sun reported the drives now could be a target for the hostile spy agencies of Russia, China, and Iran as they seek to steal valuable secrets.
Autopsies reveal cause of death of US lawyer and wife onboard Mike Lynch’s superyacht
Autopsies have been carried out on a couple who drowned on Mike Lynch’s superyacht when it sank off the coast of Sicily last month.
Seven lives were lost when the British-flagged boat, called the Bayesian, went down in a freak storm while anchored near the Sicilian capital of Palermo on 19 August.
Autopsies reveal cause of death of US lawyer and wife onboard Mike Lynch’s superyacht
Seven lives were lost when the the yacht Bayesian, belonging to British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, capsized off the coast of Sicily
Darktrace to be taken over after Mike Lynch’s death
Darktrace shares are set to stop trading publicly at the end of September, after the company set a timetable for its blockbuster private equity takeover to be completed.
The private equity group Thoma Bravo struck an almost 5.31 billion dollar (£4.3 billion) deal to buy Darktrace in April.
Darktrace AI interrupts in-progress cyber-attacks in seconds, including ransomware, email phishing, and threats to cloud environments.
It marks one of the biggest take-private deals for a London-listed company in recent years, and will see Darktrace leave the FTSE 100 on October 1.
Poppy Gustafsson helped to set up the Cambridge-based company in 2013 alongside Autonomy founder Mike Lynch.
Mr Lynch, and his daughter Hannah, were among seven people to die after the Bayesian superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily last month.
Bodies flown back to UK on private planes - report
The bodies of Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, and the other victims of the Bayesian disaster have been flown back to their families after their post-mortems, according to reports.
They were repatriated on private planes, with their private funerals expected to be held over the coming days, Italian media reports.
The British tech tycoon’s boat had been moored near the port of Porticello on 19 August when it sank during the early hours of the morning. It is now lying 50m below the surface.
Among those killed were Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, who had been due to begin studying at Oxford University in September, as well as four other family friends and associates.
Jonathan Bloomer, the international chairman of Morgan Stanley Bank; his wife Judith, a psychotherapist; Christopher Morvillo, a US lawyer; and his wife Neda, a jewellery designer also died in the sinking.
Also killed was the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, whose body was recovered floating near the wreckage.
Four victims found with carbon dioxide in lungs
Tech billionaire Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, and five other people died when the Bayesian went down in a downburst, which is similar to a small tornado.
Chef Recaldo Thomas, Jonathan Bloomer, the Morgan Stanley International bank chairman, his wife Judy, and Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife Neda, were the other victims of the August 19 tragedy.
Four of the victims are feared to have suffocated to death in air bubbles that filled with carbon dioxide, according to their autopsies raising the frightening possibility that they may have been conscious after the yacht sank, according to Italian news outlet La Republica.
Fifteen people, including Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, survived when they were rescued by a nearby yacht.
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