Mike Lynch, his teenage daughter, and four other people had been missing since the tech mogul’s yacht sank on Monday morning
Five bodies have now been found in the wreckage of British tycoon Mike Lynch’s yacht, including those of Lynch himself and his teenage daughter Hannah, multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday.
The 56-meter-long British-flagged superyacht named ‘Bayesian’, which had 22 people onboard, had anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello when it was hit by what is believed to be a tornado or waterspout. The body of the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, was located shortly after the vessel sank.
According to reports, four bodies have been recovered while a fifth has been located but is yet to be retrieved from the wreckage. One person remains missing.
The head of Sicily’s civil protection agency, Salvatore Cocina, has reportedly confirmed that two bodies were identified as British tech billionaire Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter.
Those still unaccounted for are Morgan Stanley executive Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, and New York lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo.
Cocina told the news agency PA that the search had finished for the day and will resume on Thursday.
The vessel, which was carrying 12 crew members and ten passengers, sank in the early hours of Monday morning. Fifteen people have so far been rescued, including Lynch’s wife, who owns the ship.
Shipbuilding experts have claimed the now sunken yacht was among the “safest” available. According to The Telegraph, British investigators are likely to contact the designer of the vessel.
The incident occurred as the 59-year-old Lynch, known as ‘Britain’s Bill Gates’, was enjoying a “victory trip” to celebrate winning his US fraud trial over the £8.3 billion ($10.8 billion) sale of his software development firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.
In a separate tragedy, it was reported that Lynch’s co-defendant in the trial and former vice president of finance at Autonomy, Stephen Chamberlain, was killed after being fatally struck by a car while jogging in the county of Cambridgeshire, UK, on Saturday.
