Bayesian captain investigates death of Mike Lynch and six others in sinking yacht

Local reports confirmed by Reuters say Italian prosecutors are investigating the captain of a luxury yacht that sank at near-lightning speed off the coast of Sicily “for manslaughter and shipwreck.”

Autopsies are due to begin soon on the bodies of those who died in the disaster. Among them is British billionaire and technology magnate Mike Lynch, who had only weeks earlier been acquitted by a US court of fraud charges when he sold his company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $12 billion in 2011. Other victims included his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, as well as Lynch's lawyer and one of his team's key witnesses during the trial.

New Zealander James Cutfield, 51, was captain of the 184-foot superyacht Bayesian, which sank in just 60 seconds on August 19 after being hit by a “tornado-like waterspout” during a storm while anchored about half a mile from Palermo harbor.

Under maritime law, Cutfield bears ultimate responsibility for the welfare of all passengers and crew aboard the ship. He has already been interviewed by police twice, and authorities have not yet announced whether they plan to investigate Cutfield's other eight surviving crew members.

Although it was ultimately a sudden change in the weather that caused the Bayesian ship to be swallowed by the waves, Ambrogio Cartosio, head of the local public prosecutor's office, said it was “plausible” that human error also played a role in the boat's sinking.

Local press also quoted naval architect Franco Romani, a member of the team that designed the yacht, as saying there was a possibility the ship took on water at high speed because a side hatch had been left open.

Fifteen of the 22 people on board the boat survived the sinking, including Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, and another woman named Charlotte Golunski, who saved the life of her one-year-old daughter by holding the baby above her head over the waves.

In a bizarre twist of events, Lynch's co-defendant in the latest trial, Stephen Chamberlain, also died in a British hospital within hours of the boat sinking, succumbing to injuries sustained in a car crash two days earlier.