Yacht sinks live on air: Manslaughter probe launched into seven deaths including tech billionaire Mike Lynch

The prosecutor in the case said no information had been obtained so far from examining the seven people who died.

Asked whether post-mortem examinations had been carried out, Raffaele Cammarano told a news conference in Italy: “There are a whole number of preliminary stages that must be passed before the bodies are autopsied.”

The yacht had suffered a sudden landing, and Italian officials said they would look into how it affected one vessel and not other nearby vessels, according to a translation of the conference.

The investigation is currently an Italian affair with local participation, but lead prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said: “I cannot assure you with certainty that the investigation will be exclusively Italian.”

“There will be developments, I am sure, in this regard,” he added.

• Italian officials have launched an investigation into a shipwreck and manslaughter.
• Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said he believed “crimes were likely committed” in connection with the sinking of the yacht.
• Several bodies found on sunken yacht in one cabin ‘that wasn’t theirs’
• The yacht was hit by a strong thunderstorm. A thunderstorm is a strong wind that descends from a thunderstorm and spreads quickly once it hits land.
• The passengers may not have been able to escape the yacht because they were asleep.

Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said he believed “crimes were likely committed” in connection with the sinking of the yacht.

He told reporters that the sinking could have been the responsibility of the captain, the crew, the individuals responsible for supervision, the ship’s construction company or others.

He added: “We will determine the responsibility of each element, and this will be done through investigation, so we cannot do this prematurely.

“To me, it is possible that crimes were committed – it may be a case of manslaughter – but we can only prove that if you give us time to investigate.

“The timing of the media is completely different from the timing of the attorney general. We need a minimum of time to reach a sound scientific conclusion.”

“It is normal to send distress signals when there is imminent danger – this is what alerted the port authorities to come to the scene,” said Admiral Raffaele Macoda, director of maritime navigation in western Sicily.

“There may have been a tampering error given the speed of events, meaning the emergency distress signal was not sent correctly or in a timely manner.

“I’m afraid we can’t reconstruct all these details at this time.

“We cannot say exactly when the first distress signal was sent.”

“The ship’s owners will bear the full cost of salvaging the wreck,” he added, without being able to estimate the cost.

Prosecutors said the passengers who died were likely asleep, which is why they failed to escape.

“They were asleep while the others were not,” said Rafael Cammarano, the prosecutor in the case.

He was asked if there was anyone available at that time to alert them.

“This is exactly what we are trying to ascertain through the statements made by the survivors during their interrogation – a key point in the investigation, of course,” Mr Cammarano said.

The prosecutor told reporters that all the bodies on board the sunken yacht were found in one cabin that “did not belong to them.”

“The bodies were found in a cabin that did not belong to them, but that does not give us any kind of certainty about what happened,” prosecutor Rafael Cammarano said, through a translation provided by the BBC.

“We have no idea why they are all in the same cabin.”

Rafael Cammarano, the prosecutor in the case, was asked whether there was a black box and whether its ports were left open.

“We did not get accurate information about the black box. It was very difficult to get into some of the cabins and the yacht itself,” he said.

“The first phase of this investigation will certainly focus on confirming the existence of such objects and recovering the bodies.

“We can’t answer that for sure yet.”

He added: “We cannot reveal anything at this stage, but the facts will be confirmed by searching the wreckage later.”

“This was an abnormal weather situation, and as you can see from the internet, there was a forecast from midnight to 4 a.m., with winds of five degrees from the northwest and west, and a storm warning,” said Admiral Rafael Macuda, commander of the Coast Guard.

“But there was no tornado warning.”

In response to a question from a reporter, a diver who went down to the Bayezian said there were many “obstacles” on the way to finding the bodies in the cabins.

Specialist divers trying to recover the bodies had to contend with “poor visibility due to weather conditions” and were called in from across the country as part of a search and rescue operation involving “about 70 people” each day.