Five bodies recovered from superyacht sinking

Five bodies have been recovered from the wreck of a superyacht that sank off Sicily on Monday, leaving one person still unlocated, as investigators sought to learn why the vessel sank so quickly.

Rescue crews brought the body bags ashore at Porticello port while divers continued the search for the sixth missing person, the Associated Press reported. 

The six missing included Judy and Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Bermuda-based insurer Hiscox and Morgan Stanley International. 

Besides the Bloomers, the other people who failed to escape from the boat were British tech magnate Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo. 

The AP reported that the Italian Coast Guard had said the missing sixth person was a woman, suggesting Jonathan Bloomer's body had been recovered.

No signs of life have emerged over four days of searching the yacht’s hull on the seabed 50 metres underwater.

The Bayesian, a 56-metre British-flagged yacht, went down in a storm early on Monday as it was moored about a kilometre offshore. Civil protection officials said they believe the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout, and sank quickly.

Fifteen people, including Lynch's wife, managed to get to safety, while the body of the onboard chef, Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, was found near the wreck hours after the disaster.

Specialist rescuers have been searching inside the hull of the sunken yacht for the past three days, but operations have been challenging due to the depth and the narrowness of the places that the divers are scouring, the fire brigade said.

Reuters reported that the disaster has baffled naval marine experts who said such a vessel, built by Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini and presumed to have top-class fittings and safety features, should have been able to withstand such weather.

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation and authorities have started questioning passengers and witnesses.

The captain, James Cutfield, and crew have made no official comment on the disaster.

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Italian Sea Group, which includes Perini, said the Bayesian was "one of the safest boats in the world" and basically unsinkable.

He added that he believed the disaster was caused by a chain of human mistakes and that the storm had been expected, in interviews with Italian media.

"The ship sank because it took on water, from where investigators will have to say," Costantino told television news programme TG1 late on Wednesday.

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