Yacht sinking: Manslaughter investigation launched into deaths of seven including tech billionaire Mike Lynch

A senior Sicilian prosecutor has outlined the sequence for recovering the bodies of six people missing following a yacht sinking, describing the incident as a “very serious tragedy”.

“These six people who desperately tried to save themselves were eventually rescued,” prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said at a news conference on Saturday.

“First, it was the four of them. Jonathan Bloomer, a banker, Christopher Moviello, a lawyer, all four of them were pulled out of the yacht which was 50 metres under the water.

“Later, two others were also rescued.

“Michael Lynch went missing yesterday the 23rd and then Michael Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah was found yesterday morning.

“This is a very serious tragedy and in order to mitigate the scale of it we asked for the cooperation of our firefighters and divers who have shown incredible courage and skill in a very difficult task to enable us to conduct a proper body examination of the wreck.”

An investigation into manslaughter has been opened into the deaths of seven people in the sinking of a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily, Termini Imerese prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said.

Mr Catosio said there was “a possible question of foul play” in the sinking, which could have been caused by “misconduct”. But he added that “the reality is this is just the beginning of the investigation”.

Chris Morvillo, an attorney at Clifford Chance, and his wife, Neda Morvillo, also died when their yacht sank.

Giovanni Constantino, CEO of the Italian Offshore Group, which owns the Perini, said the sinking was caused by a series of “unspeakable and unjustifiable mistakes” made by the crew and ruled out design or construction defects.

Pull Bayesian Retrieving it from the sea could help investigators determine what happened, but the operation is likely to be complicated and costly.

Nick Sloane, a South African engineer who led the salvage operation of the Costa Concordia cruise ship that sank in 2012, told Italian media on Friday that the salvage operation would cost up to €15m (£12.7m).

He told Republic The report said salvaging the yacht would take six to eight weeks, including preparatory work, and must be completed by mid-October, but did not specify the reason for choosing this time.

He said refloating the yacht would have to be done “very, very slowly” and could take several days.

Italian officials are scheduled to hold a news conference on the sinking on Saturday morning Bayesian It is located off the coast of Sicily.

Investigators from the Termini Imerese prosecutor’s office said a press conference would be held to announce the first results of the criminal investigation, which was launched immediately after the tragedy, although no formal suspects have been publicly identified.

The main question for investigators is why the sailboat, considered “unsinkable” by its manufacturer, Italian shipyard Perini Navi, sank while a nearby sailboat remained largely unscathed.

James Cutfield, the captain of the Bayes superyacht, and other survivors have been questioned by prosecutors on behalf of the Coast Guard.

Neither has commented publicly on why the ship sank.

So far, no one has been formally investigated.