Italian prosecutors will investigate the captain of the superyacht belonging to British tech magnate Mike Lynch that sank off Sicily last week during an intense storm, killing Lynch and six other people, Italian media reports said on Monday.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the decision.
Being placed under investigation in Italy does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will necessarily follow.
James Cutfield, a 51-year old New Zealand national, is being investigated for manslaughter and shipwreck, the dailies La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera said.
Magistrates spoke to Cutfield on Sunday for the second time in a week, la Repubblica reported, questioning him for more than two hours.
It said prosecutors may also investigate a crew member who was on duty when the storm hit and survived the incident.
The British-flagged Bayesian, a 184-foot superyacht, was carrying 22 people when it capsized and sank on Monday within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm while anchored off northern Sicily.
Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian.
What to know after a tornado sank the yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily:
- A superyacht capsized off the coast of Sicily after a tornado hit the area early Monday, killing seven passengers.
- British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was identified as one of the bodies pulled from the wreckage. His teenage daughter, Hannah, was the final one to be recovered.
- Lynch — known as “Britain’s Bill Gates” — had invited guests from Clifford Chance, a legal firm that represented him, and Invoke Capital, his own company, on the voyage, according to the Telegraph.
- Security camera footage shot from 650 feet from where the Bayesian sank Monday shows it disappearing.
- A rare and unexpected “black swan” weather event may have led to the Bayesian’s speedy demise, maritime experts say.
Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was among those who died.
While the yacht had been hit by a sudden meteorological event, it was plausible that crimes of multiple manslaughter and causing a shipwreck through negligence had been committed, the head of the public prosecutor’s office of Termini Imerese, Ambrogio Cartosio, said on Saturday.
Maritime law gives a captain full responsibility for the ship, crew, and all on board.
Cutfield and his eight surviving crew members have made no public comment yet on the disaster.
“The Bayesian was built to go to sea in any weather”, Franco Romani, a nautical architect that was part of the team that designed it told daily La Stampa in an interview published on Monday.
He said it was likely the yacht had taken on water from a side hatch that was left open.
Romani said the crew underestimated the bad weather and that they should have made sure that all openings had been shut and the anchor removed before the storm hit the boat.
