Italy: Potential manslaughter being investigated in superyacht sinking, says prosecutor

Rome: Investigators are considering potential manslaughter as they try to find out what caused the Bayesian superyacht to sink, killing seven people, an Italian prosecutor has said.

Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said “behaviours that were not perfectly in order” may have been behind the number of deaths off the coast of Sicily at a news conference.

Investigators will focus on “the extent all the people [on board] were warned” of safety procedures, he said.

Responsibility could lie with “all members of the crew… the manufacturers… [or those who were] not surveying or supervising the ship”.

But all lines of inquiry are being considered, including the role of the extreme weather that struck the area, he added.

Firefighter Bentivoglio Fiandra revealed that when the emergency call came in at 4.38am on 19 August, the yacht had already sunk and was on its right-hand side around 50m underwater.

As a result those who died “were trying to hide in the cabins on the left-hand side” of the vessel, he said. Alternatively, they could have been asleep, so failed to escape.

Divers found the body of the on-board chef near the vessel first, he added.

Then, a rotating team of rescuers discovered five others inside the yacht – in the first cabin on the left-hand side – and the final one in the third on that side.

Investigators plan to retrieve the shipwreck from the seabed to be able to establish the circumstances in which the yacht capsized, the prosecutor said on Saturday, with the owners taking responsibility for the cost.