Desperate search for Mike Lynch & Bayesian superyacht victims enters day 2 as divers ‘blocked by furniture’ on wreck
A FRANTIC search for the six people still missing after the Bayesian superyacht sank has entered its second day with specialist divers deployed to the scene.
The £14million luxury vessel capsized and sank more than 160ft on Monday when extreme weather battered the port of Porticello in Sicily.
Brit billionaire tycoon Mike Lynch, 57, and his daughter Hannah, 18, are among the six still lost at sea.
Footage and pictures from the scene shows hordes of firefighters, divers and police scouring the water all day Monday and into the night.
Just before midnight on Monday, the Palermo fire brigade revealed on X that divers exploring the wreck were unsuccessful because of furniture blocking the way.
This morning the UK government’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch said four of its specialist cave divers are on their way to assist.
They are set to assess the scene as the desperate hunt for the missing resumes off the Sicilian coast today.
Fifteen people were rescued yesterday, including a one-year-old British girl whose mum held her above her head to keep her from drowning.
One person so far has been found dead, named by local authorities as the chef working onboard.
Divers scouring the wreckage compared it to a “small Concordia”, encountering small spaces and obstacles blocking their only routes.
Italian outlet E News said Luca Cari, head of the local Fire Brigade, told them the dive teams are facing “considerable difficulties”.
He said: “It’s a small Concordia.
“The spaces inside the ship are very small and if you encounter an obstacle it is very complicated to move forward, just as it is very difficult to find alternative routes.”
The Concordia was a cruise ship that hit a rock underwater and capsized, killing 33, in 2012.
A huge search effort was launched as crew tried to get to those trapped in the small crevices of the huge ship.
Those working on the wreck in Palermo also face a time crunch, as they only have 10 minutes to search per dive.
Cari explained: “They can stay underwater for a maximum of 12 minutes, two of which are needed to go up and down.
“So the real time to be able to carry out the search is 10 minutes per dive.”
Four of the missing from the Bayesian yacht disaster are British and two are American.
They include businessman Mike Lynch, dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates” and his teenage daughter.
Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, 57, was rescued with horrific injuries from walking across broken glass to get to safety.
International chairman of bank giant Morgan Stanley, Brit Jonathan Bloomer, 70, is also missing along with his wife Judy.
As is top New York lawyer Chris Morvillo, a solicitor at major firm Clifford Chance who worked for Mike Lynch, and his wife Nada.
Who are the six still missing from the Bayesian yacht tragedy?
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
THE BAYESIAN superyacht was hosting a lavish party for 12 guests, with 10 crew also onboard.
After 15 people were rescued from the water on Monday, six people remain missing and one has been found dead.
Italian authorities said the man recovered near the yacht wreckage was the chef working onboard.
Four of the missing are British and two are American.
Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18, are among the four Brits lost at sea.
International chairman of bank giant Morgan Stanley, Brit Jonathan Bloomer, 70, is also missing along with his wife Judy.
As is top New York lawyer Chris Morvillo, a solicitor at major firm Clifford Chance who worked for Mike Lynch, and his wife Nada.
Extreme winds and rain battered the Porticello port in Palermo overnight on Sunday before the tragic accident.
It caused swirling twister-like columns of air, called waterspouts, to attack the 184ft superyacht.
Some 22 horrified passengers, made up of mostly Brits, screamed in fear as the boat flipped over.
Witnesses said a tornado snapped the 246ft boat mast – the world’s second tallest – clean in half.
Others told Italian outlet Ansa that the anchor was down when the storm hit on Monday morning, causing the ship to lose its balance.
Lynch, previously dubbed “the British Bill Gates”, was hosting a party on the boat along with his wife and daughter.
The business tycoon – worth an estimated £852m – was surrounded by members of his legal firm and company Invoke Capital to celebrate a US jury clearing him of fraud earlier this summer.
He was extradited to the US in 2023 over the £8.5billion sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 and was accused of inflating the company’s value.
The dad-of-two had spent a year under house arrest in the States.
He was cleared of 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy, following a trial in San Francisco in June.
Who is Mike Lynch?
By Georgie English, Foreign News Reporter
ENTREPRENEUR Mike Lynch is still believed to be missing hours after a £14m luxury yacht capsized in a tornado off the coast of Sicily.
The tech tycoon, dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates”, was one of the 22 people sailing onboard the £166,000 a week vessel, the Telegraph reported this afternoon.
Lynch, 59, sold Autonomy Corporation – a tech company for $11b to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
He has also been involved in Invoke Capital and cybersecurity company Darktrace.
He was awarded an OBE for his services to enterprise in 2006.
Born in Ilford, Lynch had a firefighter father from County Cork and a nurse mother from County Tipperary.
Away from work, Mike is married to wife Angela Bacares and the pair have two children together.
In 2023, the Sunday Times rich list set the couple’s value at £852m.
Just weeks ago, Lynch was acquitted of criminal charges by a jury in San Francisco after a 12-year legal battle over the $11bn sale of his firm, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
He was extradited to the US on fraud charges back in 2023 with a judge setting his bail at £79m.
US Marshsals took Lynch into custody at Heathrow, putting him in chains and bundling him on board a United Airlines flight.
However, he had a few things in his favour.
The nature of the case led to a boring and turgid trial, including painstaking parades of emails, reports and spreadsheets filled with jargon, leaving jurors glassy-eyed.
One was even dismissed because he repeatedly fell asleep.
Lynch argued that any questionable activity was entirely immaterial in the context of a thriving business bringing in hundreds of millions a year.
While his lawyers claimed the books were approved by outside accountants and that, by British standards, the deals in question were appropriately accounted for.
Lynch was used as the final witness and rather than going “right for the jugular”, as his head lawyer Brian Heberlig said, the prosecutors simply “reviewed a chronology of documents, with no probing questions”. The jury agreed.