Bayesian yacht sinking latest: Diver speaks of ‘unbearable’ search for Mike Lynch’s daughter Hannah
Captain James Cutfield, ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith all now under investigation for manslaughter
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A diver who led the search for the missing bodies on Bayesian wreck said that finding Mike Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah was the hardest.
Giuseppe Petrone, chief of the Italian Firefighters Dive Team, said: “It was such a relief to have found her after almost five days. The tension had been unbearable until then.”
Mike Lynch’s wife did not want to leave the scene of the Bayesian wreck without her family, the captain of a boat near the sinking has said.
Karsten Borner, the captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which helped to rescue the 15 survivors of the disaster in Sicily, told People that Angela Bacares “didn’t want to leave because her husband and her daughter were still down”.
British technology tycoon Mr Lynch and one of the daughters he has with Ms Bacares, Hannah, were among the seven people who were killed after his superyacht capsized and went down on 19 August within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm.
The captain’s comments come as three crew members of the British-flagged vessel – captain James Cutfield, ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith – are now all under investigation for manslaughter and shipwreck.
Two more crew members under investigation over sinking of superyacht Bayesian
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Bayesian captain ‘exercised right to silence’ in manslaughter probe questioning, lawyer says
The captain of the Bayesian yacht chose not to respond to prosecutors’ questions as he was spoken to for a third time on Tuesday, his lawyer has said.
James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, is under investigation for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges.
“The captain exercised his right to remain silent for two fundamental reasons,” lawyer Giovanni Rizzuti told reporters. “First, he’s very worn out. Second, we were appointed only on Monday and for a thorough and correct defence case we need to acquire a set of data that at the moment we don’t have.”
Being placed under investigation does not imply guilt or mean that charges will necessarily follow. Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio has said his team would consider each possible element of responsibility including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision and the yacht’s manufacturer.
The Times reported one of Mr Cutfield’s lawyers as saying that the captain is “understandably very shaken up” after the ordeal last Monday.
Who is being investigated?
Three people are being investigated by the Italian authorities for manslaughter after the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off the coast of Sicily.
On Monday, the boats 51-year-old captain James Cutfield, from New Zealand, was put under investigation. He declined to respond to prosecutors during questioning on Tuesday
Two British crew members are now also being investigated. Ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith are being investigated over the same crimes.
A source told Reuters that Parker Eaton is suspected of having failed to protect the yacht’s engine room and operating systems.
Being investigated does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.
How Mike Lynch’s inner circle celebrated end of billionaire’s 13 year court battle
British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among the people initially unaccounted for after his superyacht Bayesian sank in a storm off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of Monday.
On Saturday morning, Italian authorities announced a manslaughter investigation had been launched into the deaths of seven people, after a five-day operation that has seen divers carefully navigating their way into the cabin bedrooms.
After a decade-long legal battle which had seen him extradited to the US to face an $11bn fraud case, Mr Lynch had celebrated by inviting his close friends, colleagues and those who helped him on his legal team aboard his boat as a gesture of gratitude.
Read the full article here:
Who was on Bayesian and how they were celebrating end of Mike Lynch’s court battles
Italian authorities announced a manslaughter investigation had been launched into the deaths of seven people
Read the full story: Two more crew members under investigation
Two more crew members from the Bayesian are under investigation for manslaughter, including the ship engineer and sailor.
A source said that Tim Parker Easton is suspected of having failed to protect the yacht’s engine room and operating systems, while Matthew Griffith was on watch duty on the night of the incident.
Read the full article from Tara Cobham here:
Two more crew members under investigation over sinking of superyacht Bayesian
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and daughter Hannah among seven who died when vessel capsized off Sicily
Investigation will consider every possible element
Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio, who is heading the investigation, has said his team would consider each possible element of responsibility including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision and the yacht’s manufacturer.
The legal team have also said their investigation would take time and required the wreck of the Bayesian superyacht to be salvaged from the sea. It is currenlty lying on its right side, at a depth of around 50 metres (164 feet).
Two more crew members from Bayesian under investigation
Two more crew members from the Bayesian are under investigation for manslaughter after seven people were killed when the superyacht sank in a storm off Sicily last week.
A judicial source said on Wednesday that Italian prosecutors are probing two more crew members in connection with the vessel’s sinking, along with its captain, after the British-flagged Bayesian capsized on 19 August while anchored off northern Sicily.
Ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith are both also being investigated over the same crimes. The source said that Parker Eaton is suspected of having failed to protect the yacht’s engine room and operating systems, while Griffith was on watch duty on the night of the incident.
Being investigated does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.
Pausing coverage
Good evening, that’s all for today on our coverage.
What happened when boat started sinking
The Bayesian sent its last signal before sinking via the tracking Automatic Identification System (AIS) at 0206 GMT, according to the MarineTraffic website.
Chief Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said a red flare alerting rescue services about the emergency was fired into the sky at 0238 GMT, more than 30 minutes after the boat had gone down.
The head of Palermo’s Fire Brigade, Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra, said the boat sank from the stern and is lying on its starboard side at a depth of around 50 metres (164 feet).
In the yacht, the bodies of the dead were found in the cabins on the left-hand side of the boat, where the passengers may have tried to search for remaining bubbles of air, he added.
Prosecutor Cammarano said the passengers were all probably asleep at the time of the storm which was why they failed to escape.
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