1 of 2 | Rescuers in Italy recovered the bodies of four people from the Bayesian yacht on Wednesday, with two passengers still missing. Photo by Igor Petyx/EPA-EF
Aug. 21 (UPI) — A fifth unidentified body was located Wednesday after four others inside the superyacht Bayesian, now sunk off the island of Sicily’s coast near Italy two days after capsizing in a storm as divers seek the remains of one last passenger, and investigators look for answers.
The effort to bring the fifth missing body to shore were “ongoing,” according to Salvatore Cocina, the head of Sicily’s civil protection agency.
Earlier on Wednesday, searchers had found four other unidentified bodies inside the sunken vessel in a still tedious work environment for rescuers as they look for the final fifth. One of the four unidentified corpses recovered earlier in the day belong to that of a “heavily-built man,” authorities said.
Officials have yet to publicly identify all bodies that have so far been located, but those who were missing include tech billionaire Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, attorney Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo.
One recovered and identified body so far was that of Antigua-based Canadian national Recaldo Thomas, the vessel’s chef, the Italian coastguard confirmed to Sky News. On Monday, the body of a person identified as the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, had been recovered as well.
Some of the remains were later transferred away from the dock in ambulances.
Emergency divers have been limited to 12-minute underwater shifts in what fire emergency crews called a “complex” operation partly due to searching narrow spaces to reach guest rooms on the superyacht, which was owned by Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who was rescued and among the 15 survivors.
Sicilian civil protection said the bodies had been found inside the boat. Rescuers started using a remote-controlled underwater vehicle to search the wreck Wednesday.
The underwater vehicle, or ROV, has been deployed because of the depth the yacht is located on the seabed of the Mediterranean.
Patrol boats of the coastguard, which is coordinating the operation, continued to search on the surface but the main focus is on the wreck due to the fact the sailboat sank after a direct hit from a tornado-like waterspout in a violent storm that struck at around 4 a.m. local time Monday when guests were sleeping in their cabins and how quickly it went down, about three to five minutes according to survivors.
Specialist cave divers deployed by the Palermo Fire Department who have been struggling to get inside the superyacht’s hull, which is largely intact 164 feet down on the seafloor, managed to enter Tuesday via an inch-thick glass pane in its side using custom jacks specially made by a locksmith in nearby Porticello, the Telegraph reported.
They reached the main salon on one of the upper decks but their route further into the interior of the wreck was blocked, strewn with objects, furniture and electrical cables.
Briton, Charlotte Golunski, 35, described sleeping on deck with her 1-year-old daughter Sophia when the vessel began to roll from side to side before they found themselves in the water.
She briefly lost sight of the child before getting ahold of her again and holding her above the waves “with all her strength” until they were hauled aboard the Bayesian’s life raft which had been deployed by other guests.
Meanwhile, many questions remain how such a large yacht worth tens of millions of dollars performed that way it did leading to the disaster.
Prosecutors from the nearby town of Termini Imerese questioned the yacht’s captain, 51-year-old James Cutfield, from New Zealand, for more than two hours on Tuesday, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.
Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the tragedy with a focus on how the $39 million yacht, which was built 650 miles away in La Spezia, sank so quickly when other smaller vessels caught in the storm remained afloat and whether windows and watertight hatches had been left open.
Former U.K. Marine Accident Investigation Branch principal inspector Gavin Pritchard said the accident was unprecedented.
“One of the first questions that accident investigators ask is, has anything like this ever happened before? And I have to say, having observed this tragic event, I honestly can’t think of anything similar to this.”
A team of four inspectors from MAIB, which is involved because the Bayesian is a British-flagged vessel, are at the scene to try to establish a cause for the sinking so that any safety findings can be learned and shared with the maritime sector.
The investigation bureau does not consider legal liability.