Inside final 16 minutes of doomed Bayesian as yacht’s ‘black box’ reveals minute-by-minute horror of deadly storm

THE FINAL minutes onboard the tragic Bayesian have been revealed as the boat’s black-box data is analysed by cops probing the disaster.

Data recovered from the Bayesian’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) breaks down exactly how it sank in a painful 16-minute timeline.

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An AIS tracking system sends information from onboard boats to coastal stations, alerting officials to movement and distress.

As part of a probe into just how the luxury 184ft yacht toppled and plunged to the bottom of the sea, killing at least six people, cops are analysing the data.

It shows that at 3.50am on Monday the Bayesian began to shake “dangerously” during a fierce storm, Italian outlet Corriere reports.

Just minutes later at 3.59am the boat’s anchor gave way, with a source saying the data showed there was “no anchor left to hold”.

By 4am the yacht began to take on water and was plunged into a blackout, indicating that the water reached its generator or even the engine room.

At 4.05am the Bayesian fully disappeared underneath the waves and was dragged 358 metres through the water during the chaos.

An emergency GPS signal was finally emitted at 4.06am to the coastguard station in Bari, a city nearby, alerting them that the vessel had sunk.

Today marks day five of the mission by divers in Porticello to track down Hannah Lynch – daughter of Brit tycoon Mike Lynch who was confirmed dead on Thursday and pulled from the wreck.

She is the only remaining passenger not yet recovered, with officials believing she is also trapped on the boat.

It comes as…

• Five bodies were recovered from the yacht wreck including Brit tycoon Mike Lynch
• A criminal probe has been launched into charges of culpable homicide – Italy’s equivalent of manslaughter in the UK – as police question crew
• The CEO of the firm that produced the Bayesian said the boat is ‘unsinkable’ and pointed to human error
• Mr Lynch’s daughter Hannah, 18, presumed missing as search for her continues
• Captain James Cutfield was quizzed for two hours by cops and remains at the centre of an investigation
• Pictures showed the tiny raft that saved up to 15 people
• Frantic text messages from the survivors revealed the chaos

Survivors and witnesses from a small nearby boat – along with official reports – initially helped piece together an account of how the disaster unfolded on Monday morning.

People reported seeing a “tornado” – later clarified as a swirling cloud of air known as a waterspout – hit the 246ft tall mast.

Officials have confirmed that this is what toppled the boat, causing it to capsize and take on water before it sank to the bottom of the sea.

Early reports suggested the disaster struck around 5am local time off the coast of Porticello Harbour in Palermo, Sicily.

The new data pulled from the boat’s AIS appears to suggest it happened an hour earlier at around 4am.

Some 15 of the 22 onboard were rescued, 11 of them scrambling onto an inflatable life raft that sprung up on the deck.

The smaller nearby boat – named Sir Robert Baden Powell – then helped take those people to shore.

More details about the disaster surfaced yesterday as emergency workers revealed how the passengers tried to flee the water as it gushed onboard.

Divers said the guests pulled from the wreckage fled their cabins on the right – or starboard – side of the boat and tried to “climb” to safety by heading for the left – port side – where they were found.

A source working in the investigation told Italian outlet Corriere : “We found them all on that side.

“We had maps with the layout of the cabins and the positions of the guests, and that’s not where we recovered them.”

Officials also revealed that the keel – a stabilising fin-like backbone underneath the vessel usually lowered for balance in deep waters – had been taken up before it sank.

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of Italian Sea Group which owns Bayesian-maker Perini Navi shipyard, has blamed human error for the tragedy .

He told The Sun: “Modern sailing ships, especially high-tech ones like the Perini, are designed to be extremely safe and stable.

“Even in very critical conditions, if procedures are followed, a sailing yacht like the Bayesian will return to an upright position.

“However, if the ship takes on water, this stability is compromised.

“Where the water entered will be determined by the investigators.

“What is certain is that the ship took on hundreds of thousands of litres of water.”

Mr Constantino also disputed claims the tornado had not been forecast and came as a shock and said it was “widely predicted”.

And referring to the AIS data obtained by prosecutors and available to Perini, he told the Financial Times: “The torture lasted 16 minutes.

“It went down, not in one minute as some scientists have said. It went down in 16 minutes.

“You can see it from the charts, from the AIS [Automatic Identification System] tracking chart.

“The captain should have prepared the boat and put it in a state of alert and of safety, just like the boat [the Sir Robert Baden Powell] anchored 350 metres away, which was built in 1957 and handled the [weather] event brilliantly.”

Darren Fletcher

Reuters