yacht event

Superyacht sinks latest: Search resumes for Mike Lynch's daughter - as investigators 'gather evidence for possible criminal probe'

Five bodies have been found and now identified in the search for those missing after a yacht sank off the Sicily coast, including that of tech tycoon Mike Lynch. Local investigators are gathering evidence for a potential criminal investigation into the sinking of the yacht.

Friday 23 August 2024 10:41, UK

• Superyacht sinking

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• Five bodies found in search of superyacht wreckage, taking number of confirmed deaths to six
• Search resumes for British tech tycoon's daughter
• Ashna Hurynag in Sicily: Investigators gather evidence for potential criminal probe
• Family of Jonathan and Judy Bloomer describe 'unimaginable grief'
• Explained: Inside the superyacht
• Live reporting by Samuel Osborne (now) and Brad Young  (earlier)

The search for British tycoon Mike Lynch's daughter Hannah has not been "easy or quick" a spokesperson for the Italian Coastguard has said.

Vincenzo Zagarola compared the sunken superyacht to an "18-storey building full of water".

"From the first moment it has not been easy or quick to inspect the boat," he told the PA news agency.

"Think of an 18-storey building full of water."

Prosecutors in the town of Termini Imerese, Sicily, near where the Bayesian superyacht went down, are scheduled to hold a press conference tomorrow morning.

Earlier, we reported that investigators from the local public prosecutor's office are gathering evidence for a potential criminal investigation into the sinking of the yacht (see 7.29am post).

These pictures show rescue boats off the coast of Porticello, near where the luxury yacht sank, as rescue personnel resume search operations to find British tycoon Mike Lynch's daughter Hannah.

Search operations for the final person missing from the wreck of the superyacht continue, Italy's fire and rescue service has said.

It tweeted to say sea dives had resumed and added that "the long and delicate search operations for the last missing person continue".

The service shared pictures of rescue workers on boats preparing to dive.

The Italian coastguard hopes there will be progress today in the search for Hannah Lynch.

Asked if any developments were expected, spokesman Vincenzo Zagarola replied: "We trust."

Ms Lynch is the last tourist unaccounted for after six bodies were recovered since the sinking of the Bayesian on Monday.

A captain and maritime chartered surveyor has identified four potential issues that may have contributed to the yacht disaster.

Captain Ed Geary said retractable keels - a stabilising fin at the base of a boat - have "historic problems of failure".

"Whether the keel was up or down would have a serious impact on the stability of the vessel."

Second, he took aim at the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency rules.

"The MCA delegates the inspection and certification and survey of these commercial vessels - up to 12 passengers - to profit-motivated, surveying societies, certification societies.

"Unfortunately, the quality is not as high as it should be," he claimed, adding some of their personnel were "untrained, unqualified and inexperienced".

Captain Geary also took issue with comments made by Giovanni Costantino, CEO of The Italian Sea Group,

"The builder of boat initially blurted out that the boat was unsinkable, which is kind of hard to fathom considering the boat is sitting at 50m below the surface of water off the Italian coast."

But the captain agreed with Mr Costantino's claims the crew should have been alert.

Sky News has contacted the MCA for comment.

Investigators from the local public prosecutor's office are gathering evidence for a potential criminal investigation into the sinking of the yacht, says news correspondent Ashna Hurynag.

British investigators have said its too early to comment on their probe.

A "blame game" has already started, with the chief executive of the company that owns the firm that built the vessel "laying some of the blame at the feet of the crew and the captain on board", she adds.

In an exclusive interview with Sky News, Giovanni Costantino, CEO of The Italian Sea Group, talked about human error and accused the crew of not being in a state of alert.

Meanwhile, the search continues for Hannah Lynch.

"Divers are starting to get ready, and those search and rescue teams have been on site for the past half an hour or so," says Hurynag.

"Tributes have been pouring in for the six people who are confirmed to have died in this tragic incident."

The search continues for 18-year-old Hannah Lynch, the final person missing from the wreck of the Bayesian.

The body of her father, technology tycoon Mike Lynch, was recovered yesterday, while his wife Angela Bacares survived.

Divers paused their efforts at 8pm off the coast of Sicily last night and were expected to resume at 6.30am (5.30am UK time) this morning.

A decision on whether to raise the sunken yacht from the seabed is "not on the agenda", but will be in the future, said a spokesman from the Italian Coastguard, Vincenzo Zagarola.

The wreckage of the Bayesian is resting on the seabed at a depth of 164ft.

It had been moored around half a mile off the coast of Porticello when it sank at about 5am local time on Monday.

Mr Zagarola said the Italian coastguard's working theory is still that the missing woman is inside the boat.

Welcome back to our live coverage of the yacht disaster, as the search continues for the last missing tourist.

Hannah Lynch, 18, the daughter of British tycoon Mike Lynch, is still unaccounted for, while her father has been confirmed dead.

He was among five bodies recovered and identified yesterday.

Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judith Bloomer, as well as lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo were also named as among the deceased.

Meanwhile, tributes have flooded in for the deceased, including from the families of the Bloomers and the Morvillos.

A senior oceanography lecturer told Sky News it's "unlikely" Ms Lynch was thrown from the Bayesian and more probable that she will be found somewhere inside the vessel.

An Italian fire service spokesman said emergency workers "would need a crystal ball" to know if and when another body will be discovered.

Meanwhile, an investigation is under way into the circumstances behind the sinking.

The chief executive of a firm which makes and sells yachts like the Bayesian said the sinking may have been due to a series of human mistakes and questioned why its crew were not in a "state of alert" when the storm hit.

We're pausing our coverage for tonight but here is a recap of what we know:

• The five bodies discovered in the wreckage of the sunken Bayesian have been identified;
• British tycoon Mike Lynch, Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judith Bloomer, lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo were all named;
• Mr Lynch's 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch remains unaccounted for;
• A senior oceanography lecturer has told Sky News it's "unlikely" she was thrown from the Bayesian and more probable that she will be found somewhere inside the vessel;
• Tributes have flooded in for the deceased, including from the families of the Bloomers and the Morvillos;
• The chief executive of a firm which makes and sells yachts like the Bayesian believes the sinking may have been due to a series of human mistakes and questioned why its crew were not in a "state of alert" when a storm hit;
• An Italian fire service spokesman says emergency workers "would need a crystal ball" to know if and when another body will be discovered;
• Mr Lynch had reportedly considered selling the Bayesian earlier this year but changed his mind when acquitted in a major fraud trial in the US.

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Bayesian sinking: The key questions for investigators

It will be a long time before we get answers as to exactly how the UK-flagged Bayesian yacht sunk.

The luxury superyacht was carrying 22 people when a heavy storm that created waterspouts struck early on Monday.

Five bodies have been recovered from the wreck of the boat, with one person still missing.

Speculation has swirled about what went wrong, with fingers being pointed at the captain, the crew, and faults with the yacht itself.

But experts have told the BBC that this was likely a "black swan" occurrence of freak weather - and that no-one is necessarily at fault.

Here are the key questions that investigators will be asking as they look into the tragedy.

Was the keel up? And if so, why?

One of the key questions facing investigators is the role of the boat's keel.

A keel is a large, fin-like part of the boat that protrudes from its base.

The bottom of the keel - which is the lowest part of the boat - contains a huge weight, the bulb, which keeps the boat stable. When the wind pushes the boat onto its side, the keel rises through the water until - like a see-saw - the weight of it pushes the boat back level.

On a boat the size of the Bayesian, keels are often designed to be retracted so that the vessel can dock in areas that aren’t as deep, like a harbour.

When the keel is raised, it makes the boat much less stable.

In this case, the wreck of the Bayesian was found at a depth of 50m (164ft), which suggests there was no reason that the keel needed to be retracted.

But that doesn’t mean the captain or crew were at fault.

"Even without the keel completely out, the ship is stable and only a massive entry of water could have caused the sinking,” a spokesperson for Italian Sea Group, which owns the company that built the Bayesian, said, according to the Telegraph.

Investigators will want to know whether the keel was “up, down or somewhere halfway,” says Jean-Baptiste Souppez, fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Sailing Technology.

What measures did the crew take during a weather warning?

The Captain of the Bayesian, James Cutfield, reportedly told Italian media that he couldn't have foreseen the storm which battered the Bayesian.

But we do know that bad weather had been forecast beforehand.

Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society, said on Tuesday that the crew should have made sure that all the guests were awake and assigned them lifejackets, given the poor forecast.

One survivor reportedly told medical staff that the ship started sinking just two minutes after she fell asleep.

Bad weather is one thing, but a waterspout is something else entirely. And not something that the crew could have predicted.

One expert at the scene in Sicily told Reuters news agency an early focus of the investigation would be on whether the yacht’s crew had failed to close access hatches before the bad weather struck.

But on a boat of this size, open hatches alone would likely not have been enough to make the Bayesian sink, experts say.

There are also other entry points for water around the boat known as "down-flooding points", which are there to allow the engine room to be ventilated, among other things.

“There will obviously be questions about the crew and what happened and whether they were prepared,” says Mr Souppez.

“But think it's important to remember that the vessel sank in a matter of minutes, and so actually in the middle of the night for the crew to be able to keep so many people on board alive, deploy the flare, and act in the heat of the moment is a tough task”, he says.

“It is very difficult to say precisely what happened here," said Dr Paul Stott, fellow of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects.

"But it is unlikely that the crew could have reacted in any way to save the yacht in the face of such a sudden and catastrophic weather event”

How did the boat sink so quickly?

A doctor treating survivors said the ship "capsized within a few minutes".

A key question is how exactly that happened - and how it happened so fast.

“For the vessel to sink, especially at that speed, you are looking at water making its way inside the vessel throughout its entire length”, says Mr Souppez.

“Vessels like this are not actually designed to stand any period of time at 90 degrees,” says Mr Souppez.

“So if the vessel found itself at 90 degrees, then you would expect water to get inside regardless of whether hatches were open or not. Though it would obviously speed up the process.”

Some have speculated that a waterspout flying over the Bayesian could have been "popped" by the mast, dumping a huge amount of water onto the boat - and sinking it rapidly.

Was this just a freak accident, caused by the weather?

Witnesses have described seeing a waterspout form during the storm before the sinking of the Bayesian.

Most are familiar with what tornadoes look like - they are rotating columns of destructive winds, protruding from the base of clouds down to the ground.

According to BBC Weather, waterspouts are just that too, but are over water rather than land. With sea temperatures rising due to climate change, there is a concern that they could become more common.

According to the International Centre for Waterspout Research, there were 18 confirmed waterspouts off the coast of Italy on 19 August alone.

But the chance of one striking a ship directly - as has been speculated could have happened here - is still very low.

“I think that the bottom line will be that even if there have been issues with keel or hatches being open, you are probably still looking at a freak weather accident,” says Mr Souppez.

“This is likely to be a very safe modern design that has met with a freak weather condition for which nothing is designed for,” says Mr Stott.

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Lynch Yacht Sinking Off Sicily Proves as Baffling as It Is Tragic

As bodies were recovered, the authorities and experts wondered how a $40 million, stable and secure vessel could have sunk so quickly.

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By Emma Bubola and Michael J. de la Merced

Emma Bubola reported from Porticello, Italy, and Michael J. de la Merced from London.

Two months after being cleared in a bruising legal battle over fraud charges, the British tech mogul Mike Lynch celebrated his freedom with a cruise. He invited his family, friends and part of his legal team on board his luxury sailing yacht, a majestic 180-foot vessel named Bayesian after the mathematical theorem around which he had built his empire.

On Sunday night, after a tour of the Gulf of Naples, including Capri, and volcanic islands in the Eolian archipelago, the boat anchored half a mile off the Sicilian coast in Porticello, Italy. It chose a stretch of water favored by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago for its protection from the mistral wind and, in more recent times, by the yachts of tech billionaires. The boat was lit “like a Christmas tree,” local residents said, standing out against the full moon.

But about 4 a.m., calamity unfolded. A violent and fast storm hit the area with some of the strongest winds locals said they had ever felt. Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman, said he saw a flare pierce the darkness shortly after 4.

Minutes later, the yacht was underwater. Only dozens of cushions from the boat’s deck and a gigantic radar from its mast floated on the surface of the sea, fishermen said.

In all, 22 people were on board, 15 of whom were rescued. Six bodies — five passengers and the ship’s cook — had been recovered by Thursday afternoon, including that of Mr. Lynch, an Italian government official said, adding that the search was continuing for his daughter.

It was a tragic and mystifying turn of events for Mr. Lynch, 59, who had spent years seeking to clear his name and was finally inaugurating a new chapter in his life. Experts wondered how a $40 million yacht, so robust and stable could have been sunk by a storm near a port within minutes.

“It drives me insane,” said Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the company, Perini, that made the Bayesian. “Following all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.”

The aura of misfortune only deepened when it emerged that Stephen Chamberlain, 52, a former vice president of finance for Mr. Lynch’s former company and a co-defendant in the fraud case, was killed two days earlier, when he was hit by a car while jogging near his house in England.

Since June, the two men had been in a jubilant mood. A jury in San Francisco had acquitted both on fraud charges that could have sent them to prison for two decades. There were hugs and tears, and they and their legal teams went for a celebratory dinner party at a restaurant in the city, said Gary S. Lincenberg, a lawyer for Mr. Chamberlain.

The sea excursion was meant as a thank-you by Mr. Lynch to those who had helped him in his legal travails. Among the guests was Christopher J. Morvillo, 59, a scion of a prominent New York family of lawyers who had represented Mr. Lynch for 12 years. He and his wife, Neda, 57, were among the missing.

So, too, was Jonathan Bloomer, 70, a veteran British insurance executive who chaired Morgan Stanley International and the insurer Hiscox.

The body of the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered. All the other crew members survived. Among them was Leo Eppel, 19, of South Africa, who was on his first yacht voyage working as a deck steward, said a friend, who asked not to be identified.

Since the sinking, the recovery effort and investigation have turned the tiny port town of Porticello, a quiet enclave where older men sit bare-chested on balconies, into what feels like the set of a movie.

Helicopters have flown overhead. Ambulances have sped by with the sirens blaring. The Coast Guard has patrolled the waters off shore, within sight of a cordoned-off dock that had been turned into an emergency headquarters.

On Wednesday afternoon, a church bell tolled after the first body bag was loaded into an ambulance, a crowd watching in silence.

The survivors were sheltering in a sprawling resort near Porticello, with a view of the shipwreck spot, and had so far declined to comment.

Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said that the yacht had most likely been hit by a fierce “down burst” — when air generated within a thunderstorm descends rapidly — or by a waterspout , similar to a tornado over water.

He added that his agency had put out rough-sea warnings the previous evening, alerting sailors about storms and strong winds. Locals said the winds “felt like an earthquake.”

Mr. Costantino, the boat executive, said the yacht had been specifically designed for having a tall mast — the second-tallest aluminum mast in the world. He said the Bayesian was an extremely safe and secure boat that could list even to 75 degrees without capsizing.

But he said that if some of the hatches on the side and in the stern, or some of the deck doors, had been open, the boat could have taken on water and sunk. Standard procedure in such storms, he said, is to switch on the engine, lift the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for extra stability, closing doors and gathering the guests in the main hall inside the deck.

12 guests occupied the yacht’s six cabins. There were also 10 crew members.

Open hatches, doors and cabin windows could have let in water during a storm, according to the manufacturer.

Open hatches, doors and

cabin windows could

have let in water

during a storm,

according to the

manufacturer.

Source: Superyacht Times, YachtCharterFleet, MarineTraffic

By Veronica Penney

The New York Times attempted to reach the captain, James Cutfield, who had survived, for comment through social media, his brother and the management company of the yacht (which did not hire the crew), but did not make contact.

So far none of the surviving crew members have made a public statement about what happened that night.

Fabio Genco, the director of Palermo’s emergency services, who treated some of the survivors, said that the victims had recounted feeling as if the boat was being lifted, then suddenly dropped, with objects from the cabins falling on them.

The Italian Coast Guard said it had deployed a remotely operated vehicle that can prowl underwater for up to seven hours at a depth of more than 980 feet and record videos and images that they hoped would help them reconstruct the dynamics of the sinking. Such devices were used during the search and rescue operations of the Titan vessel that is believed to have imploded last summer near the wreckage of the Titanic.

After rescuers broke inside the yacht, they struggled to navigate the ropes and many pieces of furniture cluttering the vessel, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s national firefighter corps.

Finally, as of Thursday morning, they had managed to retrieve all but one of the missing bodies, and hopes of finding the missing person alive were thin. “Can a human being be underwater for two days?” Mr. Cari asked.

What was certain was that Mr. Lynch’s death was yet another cruel twist of fate for a man who had spent years seeking to clear his name.

He earned a fortune in technology and was nicknamed Britain’s Bill Gates. But for more than a decade, he had been treated as anything but a respected tech leader.

He was accused by Hewlett-Packard, the American technological pioneer that had bought his software company, Autonomy, for $11 billion, of misleading it about his company’s worth. (Hewlett-Packard wrote down the value of the transaction by about $8.8 billion, and critics called it one of the worst deals of all time .) He had been increasingly shunned by the British establishment that he sought to break into after growing up working-class outside London.

He was extradited to San Francisco to face criminal charges, and confined to house arrest and 24-hour surveillance on his dime. In a townhouse in the Pacific Heights neighborhood — with security people he jokingly told associates were his “roommates” — he spent his mornings talking with researchers whom he funded personally on new applications for artificial intelligence. Afterward, he devoted hours to discussing legal strategy with his team.

Despite his persistent claims of innocence, even those close to Mr. Lynch had believed his odds of victory were slim. Autonomy’s chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was convicted in 2018 of similar fraud charges and spent five years in prison.

During Mr. Lynch’s house arrest, his brother and mother died. His wife, Angela Bacares, frequently flew over from England, and she became a constant presence in the San Francisco courtroom during the trial.

After he was finally acquitted, Mr. Lynch had his eye on the future. “I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” he said.

Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Pallanza, Italy.

Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome. More about Emma Bubola

Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. More about Michael J. de la Merced

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Billionaire Mike Lynch Super Yacht Sinking

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Billionaire Mike Lynch Super Yacht Sinking refers to an August 2024 disaster in which Irish tech billionaire Mike Lynch's $18 million super yacht (named the Bayesian) sank off the coast of Sicily, Italy with Lynch, his daughter Hannah Lynch and others on board, including Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy Bloomer, going missing. The event garnered significant press coverage and caused viral reactions on social media sites like Twitter / X and Reddit, sparking discourse and memes similar to the OceanGate Titanic Submarine Incident in which British billionaire Hamish Harding passed away in an expensive vessel. The layman's reaction to both disasters indicated a humorous lack of empathy for the uber-rich.

Mike Lynch is an Irish tech billionaire known for founding Autonomy — a search engine for emails and internal business documents that helps companies find information quickly. Mike Lynch has been infamously involved in American and British legal battles based on the sale of Autonomy to HP in which Lynch was accused of cooking the books to make the sale. At the time, HP valued Autonomy at $46 billion. Many have compared him to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs . [1]

On August 19th, 2024, Mike Lynch's $18 million super yacht the Bayesian reportedly sank off the coast of Sicily, Italy when it faced an unexpected storm. Rescue teams quickly saved 15 passengers who were on board. One man was found dead. Six passengers were still missing as of August 20th, including Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah Lynch, Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo. [2]

Online Reactions

On August 19th, 2024, the news spread to Twitter / X across multiple viral posts. For instance, on the day, the X [3] account of Dexerto shared the news, receiving over 36,000 likes in a day.

The tweet received viral quotes , like one from X [4] user @Nerbit_13098 on August 19th, who referenced the 2023 OceanGate Titanic Submarine Incident when writing, "Our annual tradition of sacrificing billionaires to appease Poseidon is going well I see," earning over 606,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Similar jokes surfaced in viral replies to Dexerto's tweet, like one shared by X [5] user @Stop_Hammerzeit on August 19th, 2024, reading, "billionaires vs. the ocean, ocean wins again for the second year in a row," gaining roughly 10,000 likes in a day (shown below, left).

On August 19th, X [6] user @LukasMukasPukas resurfaced the Orca Whales Eating Billionaires joke in a viral quote, receiving over 85,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Viral reactions to the disaster also surfaced on Reddit, via a viral /r/technology [9] thread that amassed over 3,800 upvotes and 670 comments in a day.

Mike Lynch Co-Defendant Conspiracy Theories

On August 19th, 2024, X [7] user @KlonnyPin_Gosch tweeted a screenshot of a The Guardian [8] article about Mike Lynch's co-defendant in the U.S. fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, being "fatally struck" by a car while jogging on August 17th. @KlonnyPin_Gosch noted the coincidence in a viral quote tweet, saying, "Co-defendants in a multi-billion dollar fraud trial don’t just get hit by cars and vanish in a yachting wreck off the Sicilian coast a mere 36 hrs apart… That doesn’t just happen lmfao," receiving over 15,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Reactions

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References

[1] AP News – Who is Mike Lynch? A look at the British tech tycoon missing from a sunken yacht in Sicily

[2] The Independent – Mike Lynch yacht latest: Survivors could be alive inside Bayesian due to ‘air pockets’ as divers enter hull

[3] X – @Dexerto

[4] X – @Nerbit_13098

[5] X – @Stop_Hammerzeit

[6] X – @LukasMukasPukas

[7] X – @KlonnyPin_Gosch

[8] The Guardian – Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in US fraud trial ‘fatally struck’ by car while jogging

[9] Reddit – /r/technology

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British tech entrepreneur Lynch’s body recovered after yacht tragedy, daughter still missing

The Bayesian, a 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged yacht, went down in a storm early Monday as it was moored about a kilometer (a half-mile) offshore. Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout. read more

The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of his family yacht that sank earlier this week off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, a senior Italian official said.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah is still unaccounted for, interior ministry official Massimo Mariani told Reuters after being briefed by the emergency services. The bodies of four other people who vanished when the boat went down were recovered from the yacht on Wednesday.

Rescue crews brought four body bags ashore at Porticello. Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, said a fifth body had been located. Divers on-scene said they would try to recover it on Thursday while continuing the search for the sixth.

The discovery made clear the operation to search the hull on the seabed 50 meters (164 feet) underwater had quickly turned into a recovery one, not a rescue, given the amount of time that had passed and with no signs of life over three days of searching.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long (184-ft) superyacht carrying 22 passengers and crew, was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it disappeared beneath the waves in a matter of minutes after the bad weather struck in the early hours of Monday.

Lynch, 59, was one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and had invited friends to join him on the yacht to celebrate his acquittal in June in a major U.S. fraud trial. His body was brought ashore in a blue body bag and driven in an ambulance to a nearby hospital morgue.

Besides Lynch and his daughter, the other people who failed to make it to safety were Judy and Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International; Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo; and the onboard chef, Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas.

Thomas’ body was found near the wreck on Monday. Fifteen people, including Lynch’s wife, survived the disaster. Mariani said it was possible that Hannah Lynch’s body was not in the boat, but might have been swept out to sea.

The families of those missing have not yet commented. Fire brigade spokesman Luca Cari warned it could take time, even days, before the last missing person was found, given the difficulty divers were having in accessing all areas of the boat, which is lying on its side at a depth of 50 metres (165 feet).

A judicial investigation has been opened into the disaster, which has baffled naval marine experts, who say a boat like the Bayesian, built by Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, should have been able to withstand the storm.

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Italian Sea Group  which owns Perini, told Italian media the Bayesian was “one of the safest boats in the world” and blamed the crew for failing to follow correct safety procedures.

The captain, James Cutfield, and his eight surviving crew members, have made no public comment on the disaster.

CHALLENGING CONDITIONS

Specialist rescuers have been searching inside the hull of the sunken yacht for the past three days in what they said were extremely challenging conditions due to the depth and the narrowness of the places that the divers are scouring.

The fire brigade compared the efforts to those that were carried out, on a larger scale, for the Costa Concordia, a luxury cruise liner that capsized off the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012, killing 32 people.

Once the final body is recovered, experts will have to decide whether, or how, to salvage the vessel. The CEO of Italian Sea Group said the yacht’s automatic tracking system suggested that it took 16 minutes from the moment the storm first hit to the sinking.

He said it was clear the ship took in large amounts of water, adding that investigators would need to see what doorways or hatches might have been left open, focusing notably on a main door located on the left side of the yacht.

“A Perini boat survived the Category 5 Katrina hurricane. Do you think one couldn’t survive a waterspout here,” he told Corriere della Sera newspaper, referring to a type of tornado which is believed to have hit the Bayesian.

Under maritime law, a captain has full responsibility for the ship and the crew, as well as the safety of all those aboard. The captain of the Costa Concordia is serving a 16-year prison term for his role in the 2012 disaster after he admitted to sailing too close to underwater rocks.

Everything We Know About Tech Tycoon Mike Lynch's Superyacht Disaster

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch's private superyacht, Bayesian, was sunk off the coast of Sicily on August 19 due to damage caused by an unusually violent storm. Rescue efforts began shortly after and 15 of the 22 people who were onboard at the time of the storm were rescued. Early reports said that one body had been recovered, but that six people were still missing — and that as of late Tuesday, rescuers were still struggling to recover bodies from the sunken yacht due to many barriers blocking access.

On Wednesday, two days after the tragic event, rescuers were able to recover the bodies of four of the individuals who had died during the storm, two of whom were Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, according to AP . At the time of writing, the body of a fifth missing person had been located but not yet recovered, and the sixth person is still missing. While many questions remain unanswered, information has trickled in over the past few days, shedding some light on what has taken place.

Lynch was celebrating a legal victory

Mike Lynch was a co-founder of the Autonomy Corporation, the founder of Invoke Capital, and the co-founder of cybersecurity company Darktrace. His presence in the tech industry was so widespread that many referred to him as "Britain's Bill Gates." One of his most infamous business dealings involved Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of Autonomy Corporation in October 2011. Only a few months after the deal took place, HP discovered that Autonomy had been claiming hardware sales as software revenue, allegedly making it seem as though it was making more money than it actually was. 

This forced  HP to devalue the company it had just acquired by $8.8 billion and led to a string of lawsuits. HP  replaced Lynch as Autonomy's CEO  in May 2012, and only a few months later, multiple government agencies in the U.S. and U.K. began their own investigations into the matter . Several years later in November 2019, Lynch faced up to 25 years in prison in the U.S. — he was extradited from the U.K. in May 2023, kicking off a legal case that was resolved only weeks ago.

In early June 2024, Lynch was cleared of all fraud charges in the U.S. related to the HP-Autonomy acquisition, ending 13 years of litigation. "I am elated with today's verdict and grateful to the jury for their attention to the facts over the last 10 weeks," Lynch said to The Guardian shortly after the verdict. It seems Lynch may have been celebrating the legal victory during the trip on the Bayesian.

A 'Black Swan' storm may have sunk the Bayesian

The $18 million Bayesian was a large vessel, so you'd think it wouldn't be particularly easy to sink — and you would be right. The storm that sank the superyacht happened at night, and so there weren't many people observing it at the time, but the brunt of it seemed to be largely centralized in the area immediately surrounding the ship.  The Independent reports that CCTV footage from a nearby dock shows the moment the yacht went down — though the footage is murky, due to the weather, you can clearly see the lights on the ship rapidly go under.

Luca Mercalli, president of the Italian meteorological society, told Reuters that the fatal damage could have been caused a type of tornado on water known as a water spout, but it also may have been due to a downburst. Mercalli also claimed that the rising frequency of these kinds of storms can likely be attributed to climate change. Matthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, reportedly referred to this kind of weather as a "Black Swan event."

At least six people died onboard the Bayesian

There were 12 passengers and 10 crew members onboard the Bayesian when it sank; 15 people on the ship's manifest have been recovered at the time of writing including Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares. This left seven of the ship's passengers unaccounted for: Mike Lynch, Hannah Lynch, Morgan Stanley International Director Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, attorney Chris Morvillo and his Neda Morvillo, and the ship's chef, Recaldo Thomas.

Thomas' body was recovered on Monday, and another five bodies were located on Tuesday, four of which were recovered from the wreckage and a fifth that would be recovered on Thursday. The bodies of Lynch and his daughter were reportedly found inside the hull of the ship. Not all of the bodies that were recovered have been identified yet, but this accounts for six of the seven missing passengers. At the time of writing, the search for the final passenger is still ongoing, and it seems unlikely at this point that they may have survived.

Part of the reason the recovery efforts have taken so long is the 150-foot depth of the wreckage and the hazardous nature of the ship itself. "We are trying to advance in tight spaces, but any single thing slows us down," Fire Rescue service spokesman Luca Cari said to AP News . "An electric panel could set us back for five hours. These aren't normal conditions. We're at the limit of possibility."

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