Captain of doomed £30m luxury superyacht is ‘questioned for more than two hours’ by Italian prosecutors

The captain of Mike Lynch’s doomed superyacht has been questioned for more than two hours by Italian prosecutors about the disaster. 

New Zealander James Cutfield, 51, a ‘well respected’ seafarer, was quizzed until late yesterday evening by prosecutors from the Termini Imerese Public Prosecutor’s Office. 

Mr Cutfield, who survived the shipwreck, is recovering in hospital with his wife by his side.

Prosecutors are expected to interview other survivors as part of the investigation. 

According to the Giornale Di Sicilia, prosecutors questioned Mr Cutfield for several hours as they tried to reconstruct the Bayesian’s final moments.

Mr Cutfield was in charge of the vessel when it capsized and sank off the coast of Sicily during a storm, leaving one man – the ship’s chef – confirmed dead and six passengers missing.   

The captain’s brother, Mark Cutfield, said he was a ‘very good sailor’ and was ‘very well respected’ in the Mediterranean. He told the NZ Herald that James is currently in hospital but is ‘okay’ and does not have injuries that are ‘too dramatic’. 

A former competitive sailor, James married his wife last year in Palma, Mallorca. He has eight years’ experience captaining luxury yachts and has worked in the industry for three decades.  

The luxury £30million sailboat was anchored just a few hundred metres off the coast of Porticello on calm seas when it was suddenly struck by a violent tornado, known as a waterspout, just before 5am on Monday.

Mr Cutfield spoke for the first time about the tragedy from his hospital bed in Palermo, telling an Italian newspaper: ‘We didn’t see it coming.’

Officials today found the bodies of two missing passengers. The body of at least one person was brought ashore shortly before 3pm local time, before being placed into a waiting ambulance in the harbour of Porticello.

The remains of the pair, whose names or sex have not yet been revealed, were reportedly found in the hull of the boat behind two mattresses, with claims that one is a ‘heavily built man’.

It comes as: 

Divers in scuba gear stand on a fire service boat as they prepare to resume the search operation in Sicily this morning

Rescue workers look at the plans of the the Bayesian as they organise a search operation for six people who are still missing after the superyacht sank

A video still showing the Bayesian yacht days before the disaster on Monday 

Italian rescuer return to Porticello Harbour after dive to shipwreck of the Bayesian as the search enters its third day. Pictured: Wednesday, August 21

Mike Lynch (pictured) invited family and friends on his superyacht to celebrate his triumph over fraud charges in the US. Lynch is missing alongside his 18-year-old daughter Hannah 

Six guests, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah have been missing since the yacht sank, with specialist divers desperately trying to access the boat amid hope survivors could be alive in air pockets inside the vessel.

Also unaccounted for since disaster struck is Morgan Stanley boss Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy and American citizens Chris Morvillo and his jewellery designer wife Neda Morvillo.

Officials are investigating whether hatches left open by crew caused the boat to sink in a matter of minutes.

An engineer had claimed the missing passengers could still be alive in air pockets 164ft below the surface, meaning divers – who can only remain underwater for ten minutes per dive due to the depth of the wreck – are competing in a race against time. 

Their operation has been hampered by difficulty getting into the ship with divers forced to smash their way through a 3cm-thick porthole to gain access to one area and other parts of the wrecked vessel blocked by furniture.

One expert at the scene said an early focus of the official investigation into the tragedy, launched by prosecutors in nearby Termini Imerese, would be on whether the yacht’s crew had closed access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.

Investigators would look at whether appropriate measures had been taken, given the forecasts for bad weather overnight, and if any of the crew members are criminally liable.

Sailing expert Sam Jefferson, editor of magazine Sailing Today, also said that he believes open hatches and doors could have contributed to the rapid sinking.

He said: ‘I would have said that the boat got hit very hard by the wind, it was pinned over on its side.

‘I imagine all the doors were open because it was hot, so there were enough hatches and doors open that it filled with water very quickly and sank like that.’

Andrea Ratti, a nautical design professor at Milan Polytechnic University, said that a boat the size of the Bayesian would only sink so quickly by taking in a huge amount of water. 

He suggested that portholes, windows or other openings may have been left open, letting in water. 

Weather records show temperatures reached around 33C the day before the sinking, which may have led to the vessel’s occupants wanting air to flow through while they slept.

Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society, said on Tuesday that the crew should have made sure that all the guests were awake and given them lifejackets in light of the forecasted heavy rains. 

Chief prosecutor of Termini Imerese, Ambrogio Cartosio, and his team are expected to interview the 15 survivors soon to determine what led to the tragic sinking of the Bayesian yacht.

Meanwhile a British team will also take part in the probe, with a former marine accident investigator saying they will look at whether the windows or watertight doors were open.

Gavin Pritchard, who was a principal investigator with the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) before retiring in 2022, told The Telegraph: ‘The MAIB will want to look at the vessel using either an ROV [remotely operated vehicle] or divers, or want to have a look and see what the positions of watertight doors, hatches and windows were.

‘It’d be important to state that doesn’t attribute blame,’ he added, saying the job of the MAIB is to establish a cause for the sinking – rather than legal liability – so safety-critical findings can be spread across the maritime industry.

Search workers head out to the scene of the sinking of the Bayesian this morning as the operation to find those still missing enters its third day

The Italian search and rescue team off the coast of Sicily on Wednesday

CCTV captured the last moments of the Bayesian superyacht before it sank beneath the waves during a ferocious storm early on Monday morning

An undated handout photo issued by costanostrayachtsupply.com of the doomed Bayesian

He added: ‘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.’

It comes as school friends of missing Hannah are anxiously waiting for updates on her safe return, with her prestigious Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, west London, saying it is ‘in shock’ after its former pupil disappeared. 

A spokesperson for the £25,000-a-year school said: ‘We are all incredibly shocked by the news that Hannah and her father are among those missing in this tragic incident and our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved as we await further updates.’ 

Hannah had just completed her A-Levels and gained a place to study English at Oxford before the tragedy. 

The Italian coastguard has insisted it is continuing its search, even though a positive outcome after nearly two days is ‘difficult to imagine’. 

Frigate Captain Vincenzo Zagarola told Italian radio station RTL: ‘Given the time that has passed and the circumstances of the event, it is naturally difficult to imagine that things can go well but we are not giving up, so we are busy [searching] with naval and air resources.’ 

Nick Sloane, who worked on the Costa Concordia salvage operation, said divers are entering a ‘critical’ 24 hours to rescue anyone who might still be alive. 

‘They’ve got a very small window of time to try to find people stuck inside with hopefully an air pocket, and they could be rescued,’ Mr Sloane told Sky News. 

‘You’ve got a maximum of two to three days to try to get someone out, so the next 24 hours are critical.’

But when Mr Zagarola was asked about the likelihood of the missing passengers being alive, he said: ‘Never say never, but reasonably the answer should be not.’

Divers from Napoli and Messina are assisting with the huge search operation, which is being made more difficult due to cables and furnishings obstructing the way to the cabins, Italian media reported. 

Dr Jean-Baptiste Souppez, a senior lecturer of mechanical, biomedical and design engineering at Aston University, said that divers ‘may be looking for a banging noise at regular intervals’.

‘This is common practice on submarines and was one of the signs the search mission for the Titan submarine was looking for after it went missing last year,’ he said and added: ‘But whether air pockets formed on the Bayesian is simply impossible to predict.’

After inspecting the command bridge, which is outdoors, the cave divers descended into the main lounge from an internal ladder.

Divers return after another attempt to gain access to the shipwreck which lays 50m underwater. Pictured: August 21

But inside, they were obstructed by floating objects from chairs and cushions to utensils and plates.

Marco Tilotta, inspector of the Palermo Fire Department’s diving unit, said: ‘We checked the hull from the outside and now we have entered the vessel to inspect all the rooms.

‘Access to the hull is difficult, getting inside, going down to the compartment below through the narrow stairs and going into all the cabins to analyse centimetre by centimetre is really hard and difficult work.’

A helicopter was seen flying over Porticello this afternoon, while an underwater vehicle has been helping divers search for missing passengers. 

Italian rescue workers are using a remotely operated underwater vehicle in their search. 

In a statement, the coastguard said five patrol cars, one helicopter and divers had been working since the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Despite the sliver of hope, Italian Coastguard officials admitted they believe the six people who are still missing have died and their bodies are inside the wreck.

It is believed the ship sank after its mast – one of tallest in the world at an enormous 246ft-high – snapped during the brutal incident and keeled over, taking the hull beyond the ‘down-flooding angle’, according to nautical experts. 

Among the 15 who survived include a one-year-old British baby called Sofia, who was kept afloat by her mother, 36-year-old Charlotte Golunski.

Mrs Golunski, an Oxford graduate and senior associate at Invoke, also survived after fighting to prevent her child from drowning.

Italian divers off the coast of Porticello, Sicily, as the rescue mission reaches day three

Lynch’s attorney Christopher Morvillo (pictured) and his wife Neda are also missing 

Neda and her husband Christopher are both missing in the wake of Monday’s superyacht sinking 

Chairman of Morgan Stanley International, Jonathan Bloomer (pictured), and his wife are also missing

Judy Bloomer, who is missing,  is a supporter and former board member of the Eve Appeal, a charity that raises awareness and funds research into gynaecological cancer

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch is still missing. His wife Angela Bacares (right) was among the 15 people who were rescued from the yacht

Luxury sailboat Bayesian was docked off the coast of Porticello when a waterspout struck the area just before 5am on Monday

A life raft is seen docked at the harbour near the port where the emergency and rescue workers are launching their search operation

The mother told Italian newspaper Repubblica: ‘I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.

‘It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.’

The head of Palermo Emergency Medical Services, Dr Fabio Genco, told the BBC that there had been ‘apocalyptic’ scenes in the aftermath of the sinking. 

He said: ‘The word that the mother and all the injured kept repeating was the ‘darkness’ during the shipwreck.

‘They spoke of about five minutes, from three to five minutes, from the moment the boat was lifted, raised by the waves of the sea until it sank.

‘There were truly apocalyptic scenes where everyone was searching and hoping to find the people who at that moment were not present, just missing.’

He added: ‘Unfortunately in the face of death and the face of life there is no difference between rich and poor, between nobles and commoners.’

Mrs Golunski’s British husband James Emsilie, 36, also survived the tragedy.

Another survivor is Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, who is now reportedly recovering from her injuries in a wheelchair.

She revealed that the first sign of the freak waterspout that sunk the luxury sailboat Bayesian was a ‘slight tilt’ that woke her up. 

Lynch’s wife told La Repubblica that she and her husband woke up at 4am when the boat suddenly ’tilted’.

Mrs Bacares said that they were not worried at the time, but that she still got up to see what was happening, until glass shattered and created confusion on board.

She sustained abrasions on her feet – likely after walking on glass shards during the sinking – which have left her unable to walk and sitting in a wheelchair, La Repubblica reports, while she also has bandages on others part of her body.

Another survivor is Clifford Chance lawyer Ayla Ronald, 36, who was part of the successful legal team invited to go sailing with Lyncchah, according to her father Lin.

Charlotte Golunski, 36, (pictured) her husband and her one-year-old baby also survived 

Mr Ronald told the Telegraph: ‘I have texted with my daughter. She has only said to me that there are deaths, and she and her partner are alive’ (pictured: Ayla Ronald)

On-board hostess Leah Randall, 20, from South Africa, also survived the tragedy. 

Heidi Randall, Leah’s mother, told Sky News: ‘I’m beyond relieved that my daughter’s life was spared by the grace of God. 

‘It doesn’t make it any easier living with heartache of those who have lost their lives or missing.’ 

Leah was photographed leaving the coast guard headquarters yesterday alongside a fellow crew member. 

Leah and 22-year-old on-board hostess Katja Chicken, from Germany, said as they were questioned by investigators: ‘We are alive by a miracle,’ according to Italian news agency ANSA, who reported that one of the girls sobbed as she said: ‘It was terrible.’

Other survivors included Irish woman Sasha Murray, 29, Matthew Fletcher, 41, from London, James Catfield 51, from New Zealand, Myin Htun Kyaw, 39, from Myanmar, crew member Leo Eppel and Frenchman Matthew Griffith. 

On Tuesday evening two crew members, Tus Koopmans and Eaton Parker, were also named as survivors. No age or nationalities were provided. 

Speaking from a hospital room in the town of Termini Imerese close to Palermo, Mr Catfied, in a state of grief and shock, could only utter one sentence.

‘We didn’t see it coming,’ he told La Repubblica.

On-board hostess Leah Randall, 20, from South Africa, was also on board and survived 

Survivors Leo Eppel (in the black t-shirt) and Katja Chicken (in the green top) as they leave the Coast Guard Headquarters on August 19 

Rescuers claimed that survivors spoke of the ship going down in ‘two minutes’ and that it appears that the yacht ‘wasn’t anchored in a safe place’ at the time of sinking. 

They were rescued by crews from nearby boats including that of Karsten Borner, the captain of a sailing ship anchored near the Bayesian, who said his team struggled to keep their boat afloat when the tornado hit.

Fabio Cefalu, a fisherman in Porticello who witnessed the tragedy unfold, said he saw a waterspout – a sort of mini-tornado – that lasted about 12 minutes shortly before 4am.

At around 4.10am he said he saw a red flare go off from Bayesian but by the time he was able to reach the area about 20 minutes later the yacht had all but disappeared. ‘We found only the cushions, and a few planks floating in the water,’ he said. 

Graphic shows how ferocious waterspout capsized doomed Mike Lynch’s Bayesian superyacht before vessel sank beneath the waves in a matter of minutes

by David Averre 

Experts reviewing the tragic sinking of the Bayesian off the coast of Sicily earlier this week have delivered theories on how the superyacht was forced beneath the waves. 

The luxury sailboat was anchored just a few hundred metres off the coast of Porticello on calm seas when it was suddenly struck by a violent waterspout just before 5am on Monday which the captain said no one had seen coming.  

Tornado-speed winds battered the vessel so ferociously that there was no time for those on board to raise the alarm or call for help before they were left swimming for their lives.

Those who made it off were stranded in the pitch-black water as the storm raged around them, while six people are believed to have been trapped inside the below-deck cabins when the boat sank beneath the murky surface.

It is believed the ship sank after its mast – one of tallest in the world at an enormous 246ft-high – snapped during the brutal incident and keeled over, taking the hull beyond the ‘down-flooding angle’, according to nautical experts. 

Former shipyard manager and maritime technical inspector Gino Ciriaci told Italian daily Corriere Della Sera said once the mast had fallen, the vessel was far more prone to pitching and rolling as it was battered by waves without the sails to steady it. 

In the case of the Bayesian, he said the waterspout was so violent that the boat, dragged down by its broken mast, tilted until the edge of the deck slipped under the surface.

The entire ordeal likely lasted only a few minutes, with the ship sinking rapidly as it took on seawater.

A handout photo made available on August 19 by Perini Navi Press Office shows the ‘Bayesian’ sailing boat, in Palermo, Sicily, Italy

Both the hull and the superstructure, the part above the main deck, were made from aluminium

The British-flagged Bayesian arrived in Porticello on Sunday night after stopping in Milazzo around 100 miles up the coast towards the Italian mainland

A handout photo made available on 19 August 2024 by Perini Navi Press Office shows the ‘Bayesian’ sailing boat, in Palermo, Sicily, Italy

Inspector Marco Tilotta, leading the Palermo Fire Brigade’s diving unit, likened the grim search operation to the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster in 2012 which claimed the lives of 33 people.

Eerily, the specialist cave divers called in for the search and rescue operation found ‘virtually everything intact’ on board, with little sign of damage, and ‘no rips in the side, no signs of impact,’ he told MailOnline.

The boat is resting on the seabed on its starboard (right hand) side, 164ft below the waves, and the first efforts of the dive teams were unsuccessful in moving furniture impeding their access to the cabins below, said Insp. Tilotta.

The rescuers still hope that survivors might be found, against all odds, in trapped air pockets, but Insp Tilotta admitted ‘it is a race against time and the quality of the oxygen will be bad’.

His choice of words however told the unpleasant truth: ‘We will do everything to recover the bodies. The weather conditions are worsening but we hope to continue operations without problems’.

Salvo Cocina, of Sicily’s civil protection agency, said of the Bayesian’s crew: ‘They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

In the next few hours and days, the accident investigators will have to work out exactly how it was possible for the vessel to capsize and sink so quickly while others were hardly affected.