British tech tycoon Mike Lynch is likely to have died of suffocation after running out of oxygen, according to a source close to the investigation.
They cited initial examinations carried out on Saturday after the businessman’s body was recovered from the family yacht that sank off Sicily’s coast last month during a freak weather incident.
Mr Lynch died alongside his 18-year-old daughter, the boat’s chef and four others, who were onboard the British-flagged superyacht Bayesian to celebrate his recent acquittal after a lengthy decade-long legal battle.
Initial results of examinations of Hannah Lynch’s body on Saturday were inconclusive, the source told the Reuters news agency.
They only ruled out any traumas or wounds as the cause of death, leaving open the possibility she ran out of oxygen or drowned.
Preliminary results from autopsies on four other victims – Morgan Stanley international chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judith, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda – indicated suffocation as the likely cause of death, judicial sources said.
Further forensic tests have been ordered of all the victims, with results expected in the coming weeks.
Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife, survived the sinking while three crew members, including the captain, are under investigation as part of the probe into the cause of the sinking.
The bodies of the dead, except the cook, were found in cabins on the left-hand side of the 56m vessel, where the trapped passengers may have tried to search for remaining bubbles of air, the head of Palermo’s Fire Brigade said last month.
A large-scale search operation continued for five days, with divers tackling challenging conditions with debris and furniture blocking the narrow passageways of the sunken yacht.
The incident has puzzled maritime experts, who said a vessel such as the Bayesian, built by high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, should have withstood the storm.
Following Mr Lynch’s death, tributes flooded in from across the tech industry, with his family issuing a statement to reflect their “unspeakable grief” at the loss of both him and Hannah.
David Tabizel, who co-founded software giant Autonomy with him in 1996, posted on X: “It looks like we’ve lost our dear Dr Mike Lynch. RIP. The world has lost a genius. His family have lost a giant of a man.”