Superyacht sinking victims died of ‘dry drowning,’ initial autopsies find

Autopsies were conducted on four of the bodies that were recovered from inside the hull of the Bayesian superyacht after it sank off the coast of Sicily.

Initial results of autopsies conducted on four of the people who died on board the Bayesian superyacht revealed the victims may have died of suffocation as opposed to drowning.

The four victims had little to no water in their lungs and stomach, suggesting that they suffocated to death, a so-called “dry drowning,” Italian newspaper La Repubblica reports.

The results seem to support the theory that the people who were found dead still inside the shipwreck may have found an air pocket after the ship went down. The victims may have used up all the available oxygen in the air pocket and began to breathe in toxic carbon dioxide, resulting in suffocation before they could drown. More tests will be needed to confirm the theory, including toxicological screenings.

The autopsies were carried out earlier this week on the bodies of four of the people who were recovered from inside the hull of the Bayesian superyacht after it sank off the coast of Sicily, near Porticello: New York lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda, and Morgan Stanley executive Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judith.

In total, seven people died when the Bayesian went down in an August storm, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.

Lynch had been celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges, stemming from Hewlett Packard’s US$11-billion acquisition of Autonomy, a business software firm he founded. Some of the people who had defended him at trial were also celebrating on the boat when it was likely struck by a waterspout, a tornado that forms over water, and sank.

Fifteen people escaped the shipwreck and were rescued by a nearby sailboat, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares. One person was found dead immediately after the shipwreck — the yacht’s Antigua-born chef, Recaldo Thomas. Six other people were deemed missing, including Lynch and his daughter, though Italian divers later recovered all of their bodies from inside the shipwreck.

Five of the six bodies were found in a single room on the left side of the ship, believed to be the last part of the ship to flood. This room may have contained an air pocket that turned toxic once the victims used up all the oxygen, if officials’ hypothesis is correct.