The victims of the Bayesian’s sinking were likely either asleep or tried to escape to no avail as Mike Lynch’s yacht went down in minutes during bad weather, prosecutors in Sicily said as they announced a probe for manslaughter and negligent shipwreck.

The dynamic of what happened to those killed isn’t fully clear, deputy prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano told reporters on Saturday. Autopsies are due to take place soon.

"Their position could lead us to think that they tried to escape, but this isn’t demonstrable in a preliminary phase,” he said of the bodies, found inside the ship, on the side closest to the surface. "The bodies might also have been grouped there, floating.”