Video surveillance cameras retrieved from the wreckage of tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s yacht may solve the mystery of why it sank in a storm off Sicily last month.
Divers from the Italian Navy retrieved video surveillance equipment, including computers and hard drives, that will be analyzed in specialized labs, according to a report Saturday.
Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, and five other people died when the Bayesian went down in severe weather, believed to be a meteorological phenomenon called a downburst, which is similar to a small tornado.
Prosecutors investigating the sinking deployed six elite divers from a special forces unit called Comsubin, who made repeated dives down to the sunken yacht with the help of a hyperbaric chamber.
Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s Antiguan-Canadian chef, 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 Aug. 19 tragedy.
Fifteen people, including Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, survived when they were rescued by a nearby yacht.
James Cutfield, 51, the New Zealand captain of the Bayesian, has not been charged with any crimes but is under investigation for multiple counts of manslaughter and causing a deadly shipwreck, along with two British crew members: Tim Parker Eaton, 56, and Matthew Griffiths, 22.
Under the Italian legal system, being placed under investigation does not imply guilt and does not necessarily mean that charges will be brought.
Officials plan to raise the Bayesian and bring it to land in order to fully investigate how it went down in just 16 minutes after being hit by the storm.
It is currently lying at a depth of 165 feet, about half a mile off the coast of Porticello.
