TERMINI IMERESE, Italy (Reuters) -An Italian prosecutor has opened a manslaughter investigation into the deaths of British tech magnate Mike Lynch and 6 different individuals who had been killed when a luxurious yacht sank off Sicily this week.

The pinnacle of the general public prosecutor’s workplace of Termini Imerese, Ambrogio Cartosio, introduced the investigation at a information convention, saying the probe was to this point not geared toward any particular person particular person.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was additionally amongst those that died when the household’s 56-metre-long (184-foot) boat, the Bayesian, capsized throughout a fierce, pre-dawn storm on Monday off Porticello, close to Palermo.

Fifteen individuals survived, together with Lynch’s spouse, whose firm owned the Bayesian, and the yacht’s captain.

The captain James Cutfield and the opposite survivors have been questioned this week by authorities. None of them have commented publicly on how the ship went down.

Raffaele Cammarano, one other prosecutor talking on the identical information convention, mentioned that when authorities questioned Cutfield he had been “extremely cooperative”.

Pulling the Bayesian out of the ocean could assist investigators decide what occurred, however the operation is prone to be advanced and dear. The wreck is mendacity apparently intact on its facet at a depth of fifty metres (164 ft).

“It’s in the interests of the owners and managers of the ship to salvage it,” Cartosio mentioned, including “they have assured their full cooperation”.

He mentioned there was no authorized obligation for the captain, crew and passengers to stay in Italy however authorities anticipated them to cooperate with the probe.

The sinking has puzzled naval marine consultants who say a ship just like the Bayesian, constructed by Italian high-end yacht producer Perini, ought to have withstood the storm and in any case shouldn’t have sunk as rapidly because it did.

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of The Italian Sea Group, which owns Perini, informed Reuters this week the shipwreck was the results of a string of “indescribable, unreasonable errors” made by the crew, and dominated out any design or development failings.

SCOURING FOR BODIES

Cammarano mentioned that the passengers had been all in all probability asleep on the time of the storm which was why they failed to flee.

Divers scoured the submerged vessel all week to recuperate our bodies, with Hannah Lynch’s the final to be recovered on Friday. The 5 different useless passengers had been recovered on Wednesday and Thursday, whereas the physique of the one crew member who died, onboard chef Recaldo Thomas, was discovered on Monday.

Mike Lynch, 59, was one of many UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and had invited associates to affix him on the yacht to have a good time his acquittal in June in a U.S. fraud trial.

Amongst those that additionally died within the wreck had been Lynch’s lawyer Chris Morvillo and Jonathan Bloomer, a Morgan Stanley banker who had appeared as a personality witness within the case on his behalf.