Italian divers on Wednesday prepared for a third day of search and rescue efforts around a sunken yacht off Sicily, where British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and four others were feared to have died earlier this week.
Local media have reported that the six missing people were likely trapped inside the Bayesian yacht when it was hit by a tornado near Porticello, Sicily, and were unable to escape.
“We are more likely to find the missing people inside the boat,” coast guard spokesman Vincenzo Zagarola said as rescue operations concluded for the day on Tuesday.
Morgan Stanley’s and Hiscox’s Bloomer Among Those Missing After Yacht Sinks
Crews aided by military ships and helicopters have been searching for the missing passengers since Monday when the Bayesian was struck by a tornado. Six guests, including Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, and nine crew have been rescued and one person is confirmed to have died.
In an interview with the PA news agency, Zagarola was asked whether the remaining passengers would be found alive. “Reasonably the answer should be not,” he said.
Lynch, 59, and his family were celebrating his recent acquittal from fraud charges with a small group of advisers when the violent storm struck. The charges stemmed from Lynch’s sale of his software firm Autonomy Corp. to Hewlett Packard Co. in 2011. The Silicon Valley giant went on to accuse Lynch of accounting failures. He’d spent years working to clear his name in court and restore his reputation as one of Europe’s most successful entrepreneurs.
A little over two months before the yacht accident, a San Francisco jury found Lynch not guilty of criminal charges that he duped HP into overpaying for his company. He was still fighting HP in a civil case in London, where a British judge held him responsible for creating the illusion of a company much larger and more successful than it really was.
Lynch and his daughter Hannah, Bloomer and his wife Judy and Clifford Chance partner Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda were identified as the missing passengers on Tuesday by authorities in Sicily.
Rescue workers have had difficulties gaining access to the yacht 48 meters (157 feet) below the surface, citing the depth and position of the vessel’s hull. Local media reported Wednesday that small teams of divers have been able to access some of the indoor sections of the boat.
“The search will go on as long as necessary,” Zagarola added. “For sure the whole hull will need to be inspected meter by meter.”
The searches are being conducted with the help of a remote-controlled underwater vehicle, capable of operating on the seabed for over two hours, according to a statement from the coast guard.
Continuano le operazioni di ricerca dei 6 dispersi a seguito del naufragio dello yacht Bayesian con l’impiego di 5 motovedette un elicottero e i sommozzatori dei Nuclei sub Guardia Costiera di Messina e Napoli e delle altre risorse SAR coordinate dalla Guardia Costiera di Palermo pic.twitter.com/t9lPhMgiJM
— Guardia Costiera (@guardiacostiera) August 20, 2024
Italian authorities have already begun a probe into the sinking, and the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch has sent inspectors for a preliminary assessment, according to a spokesperson for the Department for Transport.
An investigation would involve speaking to crew, passengers and other witnesses and collecting physical and digital evidence, for example examining logbooks, crew qualifications and any voyage recorder data.
The yacht’s mast, reportedly the highest in the world, remains intact, contradicting previous reports that it broke off during the storm, daily Corriere della Sera reported Wednesday.
Photograph: An Italian Coast Guard rescue boat during the search for survivors following the sinking of the Bayesian yacht, in Porticello near Palermo, on Aug. 20, 2024. Photo credit: Alerto Pozzoli/AFP/Getty Images
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