Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images; ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images
- Tech tycoon Mike Lynch likely suffocated after his yacht sank off Sicily last month.
- Seven people died after the "Bayesian" yacht went down, including Lynch and his daughter Hannah.
- Three crew members are under investigation following the incident.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch likely died of suffocation after his "Bayesian" superyacht sank off Sicily last month, autopsy results suggested, an investigative source told Reuters.
Seven people died after the yacht went down during a storm off the coast of Porticello on August 19, including Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.
The unnamed source told Reuters that initial autopsy results on Hannah Lynch's body were inconclusive, but they ruled out traumas or wounds as a cause of death.
Passengers Jonathan Bloomer, who was the Chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy, as well as attorney Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, also likely suffocated to death following the sinking, autopsy results suggested.
Italian media reported that their bodies showed signs of having been trapped inside air bubbles before suffocating to death.
No water was found in their lungs, trachea, or stomach, suggesting that they ran out of oxygen while inside air pockets.
Examinations indicated that Recaldo Thomas, a chef on board the yacht who also died in the incident, likely died by drowning, the Reuters source said.
Investigators previously said that five of the bodies they recovered had been discovered in the same cabin.
Bentivoglio Fiandra from the local fire rescue service said in August: "The yacht tended to the right and obviously the bodies tried to go to the other side and take refuge in their cabins."
"We found five bodies in a cabin on the left and another one in the third cabin on the left. They were in the higher part of the shipwreck," he added, per The Telegraph.
Three crew members are under investigation following the sinking — Matthew Griffiths, a sailor who was on watch duty on the vessel when it sank; James Cutfield, the ship's captain; and Tim Parker Eaton, the yacht's engineer.
The head of the public prosecutor's office of Termini Imerese, Ambrogio Cartosio, previously said he was investigating a "crime hypothesis" of culpable shipwreck and manslaughter.
Griffiths previously opened up to prosecutors about what occurred when the yacht began to sink.
According to Italian news agency ANSA, the British sailor said he had awoken Cutfield as "the wind was blowing at 20 knots."
He said the captain then "ordered to wake everyone else up" before Griffiths "stored away the pillows and plants, closed the windows of the sitting room on the bow and some hatches."
Griffiths added that he was thrown from the ship into the water once as it tilted to its side but said he climbed back on board and was "walking on the walls" as he and the crew tried to save those they could.
Mike Lynch founded tech company Autonomy in 1996. He was on Bayesian with friends and family as he celebrated his recent acquittal in a fraud trial.