‘Human error’: Superyacht builder’s allegations after Sicily tragedy
Source: X
The owner of the business that built the luxury superyacht that sank in bizarre circumstances off Sicily this week, claiming six lives, has blamed “human error” for the tragedy.
Among the dead was British tech magnate Mike Lynch, whose body has been recovered from the sunken Bayesian in deep water off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, a source close to the rescue operation said.
The bodies four other people who vanished when the boat went down in a violent storm were recovered on Wednesday.
But the source said Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah was still unaccounted for.
As the delicate recovery mission continued, Italian Sea Group boss Giovanni Costantino said the tragedy could have been avoided. The group owns Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, which built the $58-million British-flagged superyacht.
“This episode sounds like an unbelievable story, both technically and as a fact,” Costantino said, according to CNN.
Earlier, he told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the 22 people on board the Bayesian should not have been in their cabins – as they are believed to have been – when the storm hit and the 56-metre yacht sank.
“Everything that has been done reveals a very long sum of errors. The people should not have been in the cabins, the boat should not have been at anchor. And then why didn’t the crew know about the incoming disturbance?” Costantino said in his interview, translated from Italian.
Costantino said the Bayesian, built in 2008, was “one of the safest boats in the world” and basically unsinkable.
“The ship sank because it took on water, from where investigators will have to say,” he told television news program TG1 late on Wednesday.
Citing data from the Bayesian’s automatic tracking system and based on available footage, Costantino said it took 16 minutes from when the wind began buffeting the yacht, and it began taking on water, for it to sink.
❌ #Porticello #Palermo, recuperato e portato a terra dai #sommozzatori dei #vigilidelfuoco il corpo della 5ª vittima: le immersioni in mare erano iniziate dalle prime ore del mattino e proseguono per la ricerca e il recupero dell’ultimo disperso [#22agosto 9:00] pic.twitter.com/rm1d803NG0
— Vigili del Fuoco (@vigilidelfuoco) August 22, 2024
Lynch, 59, was one of Britain’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and had invited friends to join him on the yacht to celebrate his recent acquittal in a major US fraud trial.
His body was brought ashore in a blue body bag and driven in an ambulance to a nearby hospital morgue.
Besides Lynch and his daughter, the others who failed to escape the sinking boat were Judy and Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International; and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo.
Fifteen people, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, managed to get to safety. The body of the onboard chef, Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, was found near the wreck hours after the disaster.
Specialist rescuers have spent three days searching inside the hull of the sunken yacht. Operations are challenging due to the depth and the narrowness of the places that the divers are scouring, the fire brigade said.
It compared the mission to the larger-scale effort after the January 2012 capsize of the luxury cruise liner Costa Concordia off the Italian island of Giglio, which claimed 32 lives.
The Bayesian disaster has baffled naval marine experts, who said such a vessel, which was presumed to have top-class fittings and safety features, should have been able to withstand such weather.
Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation and authorities have started questioning passengers and witnesses.
The captain, James Cutfield, was grilled by authorities for two hours amid revelations the keel, a crucial part of the boat’s structure that helps keep it balanced, had been raised when the Bayesian was anchored offshore.
