Divers filmed wreck

New videos show: All Bayesian doors were closed

(Bild: Perini Navi Press Office Handout / Zuma)

Newly released video footage of the sunken luxury yacht Bayesian, taken by navy divers, proves it: The stern door and the watertight hatch leading to the engine room were closed when the ship sank. The question of why the yacht was able to fill with water so quickly therefore remains unanswered.

The video recordings were broadcast on Monday evening in the program "Quarta Repubblica" on the Italian TV channel Rete 4. It proves what the skipper of another yacht that was in the vicinity during the accident had already explained: all hatches were closed when the Bayesian sank during a storm on August 19.

Well-known hypothesis thus finally off the table 
The images currently being examined by the public prosecutor's office in the Sicilian town of Termini Imerese, which is investigating the case, confirm that the stern door was closed when the ship sank, as was the watertight door leading to the engine room. These circumstances rule out the hypothesis that water had entered through these accesses while the ship was at the mercy of a strong hurricane, as was initially suspected.

The only possibility would be that the air intakes and portholes were open, but this would not justify such a sudden sinking nor a power failure in the ship's control systems. Divers also recovered hard drives, cell phones and other computer equipment from inside the ship.

Seven people died in luxury yacht
The Bayesian sank during a severe, sudden storm off the port of Porticello near Palermo, the capital of the Italian island of Sicily. The vessel was owned by the Isle of Man-based company Revtom Limited, which in turn is owned by Angela Bacares, the widow of British billionaire Mike Lynch. Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah died in the shipwreck along with five other people. Bacares was able to save herself.