The ship went to stern bottom and not of bow as it was thought until now and on the bridge there was a man on guard. These are two of the aspects clarified during the press conference called by the head of the Termini Imerese prosecutor’s office, Ambrogio Cartosio, who on several occasions pointed the finger at the Cartabia law that prevented him from disclosing information: “This law creates significant obstacles to the activity of free information, but I believe that all citizens are required to respect the laws even when they don’t like them, that’s why I couldn’t say anything”.
Flanked by the PM, Raffaele Cammarano and by the heads of the Fire Brigade and the Coast Guard, the press conference attended by the entire international press lasted more than an hour and a half. There were many questions, very few answers: “The weather forecast that evening they were talking about possible storms. A generic alert that could not predict an event of this magnitude”, said the commander of the Palermo Port Authority, Raphael Macauda. “It was a downburst”, Cammarano then specified. The Bayesian was therefore invested by strong gusts become descendantsaccompanied by rainfall and lightning. An event not forecast by the weather forecast for that night of August 19, when shortly after 4 the Bayesian sank rapidly, settling on the ocean floor.
According to what was reported in the press conference, therefore, the weather forecast did not predict the downburst, which is a less localized phenomenon than a tornado, which therefore expands over a larger surface area than a tornado. Why then did it not have the same impact on the Dutch sailing ship, a few meters away from the English one? “A hypothesis under investigation”, is the only answer that can be obtained.
While another aspect has been clarified: a member of the crew was on the bridge that night, on guard. So there was someone at to keep watchand yet after a wild lateral sway, something did take on water quickly to the Bayesian, sunk in a few minutes. Almost all the crew members are alive, 11 out of 12, among them the only victim is the cook, Recaldo Thomas: none of the survivors were tested to see if they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol: “The priority at that moment was to treat their wounds,” Cammarano stressed.
The passengers who sank with the yacht are instead 6 out of 10. “They were sleeping”, explained the prosecutor. They were surprised in their sleep and did not have time to save themselves. One by one the bodies were found by the divers in the part of the cabins on the left, that part of the yacht that remained higher. There, the guests of the Bayesian tried to take refuge as a last resort of air, including Mike Lynchwho had organized this cruise to celebrate his acquittal after ten years of trial against him by the Hewlett Packard. His 18-year-old daughter Hannah was also a victim, the last to be recovered on Friday morning, after a four-day search.
Once the recovery operations of the victims have been completed, we will now have to proceed to the Wreck recovery: “Only once we have recovered the Bayesian will we be able to make more specific deductions,” explained Cartosio. The shipping company will deal with the emergence of the yacht at its own expense, but in what time frame is not yet clear. What is certain is that so far it is known that the Termini Imerese prosecutor’s office “has opened a file against unknown persons, hypothesizing the crime of culpable shipwreck and multiple culpable homicideagainst unknown persons, but we are only in the initial phase. We do not exclude that there may be developments of any kind”, the prosecutor specified.
While they have not yet been autopsies ordered: “We will proceed in the next few days,” explained the prosecutor. The hypothesis is that in order to perform an autopsy on the bodies, the suspects will have to be registered, to be able to grant them the possibility of nominating their own experts. The first name on the list could be that of the ship’s captain, James Cutfieldalready interviewed for more than two hours by investigators who did not want to provide details on his testimony. But it will take some more time for the prosecutor to understand “who between the captain, the crew or the builder could have committed crimes”, clarified Cartosio.
There are therefore still very few certain points of the investigation, known so far. What we know so far is that an atmospheric event of exceptional magnitude, but not too limited, hit that stretch of sea off Porticello where both the British and Dutch sailing ships were located. The British one was tossed by the waves, it drifted for 300 meters – this is what the Ais radar – then quickly submerged, taking on water astern, ending up collapsed on the ocean floor on its starboard side.
The passengers trapped inside were sleeping, but before dying they sought safety in the part of the yacht where there was presumably some residual oxygen. There, they were certainly found. The exact dynamics of the few minutes that brought the British yacht to the bottom will be clarified by the investigations. The survivors will not be obliged to remain in Italy, but it is certainly possible that the prosecutor’s office will have to interview them again. Meanwhile, the investigations cannot be concluded until the wreck is brought back to land for inspection.