Autopsies will be carried out today as the police try to establish the circumstances which led to the drowning of a man and a teenage girl at Xwejni, Gozo, last Saturday.

The girl’s body was recovered from the seabed of the bay yesterday morning, hours after her mother flew in. The man was lifted from the sea on Saturday.

Questions have also been raised on the time it took a rescue helicopter to arrive.

The helicopter arrived on the scene 40 minutes after the distress call was made and the aircrew immediately spotted the girl, Emma Yanicostas,17 with her face down in the water. “The aircraft came into hover and one rescuer was lowered into the area in very close proximity to the rocks. All of a sudden, the woman’s body went under and was never seen again,” an AFM spokesman said.

The man, Pierre Louis Berlatier, 53 was then winched up to the helicopter, but it was too late.

Some eyewitnesses said that Ms Yanicostas was still alive until about 10 minutes before the arrival of the helicopter.

The AFM spokesman explained that the alert reached the Air Wing at 5.06pm and by 5.20pm the helicopter was already airborne, with two rescuers on board, and flying at 105 knots.

“It took the helicopter 20 minutes to arrive on site due to headwinds of 25-30 knots prevailing at the time,” he said.

Civil Protection Department personnel tried to assist from land but the winds and waves were dangerously strong.

More than 100 bystanders looked on as the tragedy unfolded. At one point, they tried to form a human chain to reach out to the girl but the waves were too strong.