Divers search for yacht wreck in Sicily, six missing include UK technology chief

 

● Among the 22 on board was British tycoon Mike Lynch, who celebrated his recent acquittal on fraud charges in the United States.

Divers and an underwater drone are searching for six people, including a UK tech tycoon and an international banker, believed to be trapped when a luxury superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily.

Among the six missing were technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, as well as Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife, Judy.

Police divers resumed their search on Tuesday for six people believed to be trapped in the hull of the 56-metre (185-foot) British-flagged yacht, named Bayesian.

The yacht was anchored with 10 crew members and 12 passengers on board when it was hit by a mini-tornado before dawn on Monday.

Fifteen people, including a woman and her one-year-old child, were rescued. The body of a man, said to be the yacht’s Antiguan chef, was found.

The passengers were guests of Lynch, sometimes called the British Bill Gates, to celebrate his acquittal in a massive fraud case in the United States.

In June, Lynch was cleared of fraud and conspiracy charges in a U.S. federal trial related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion acquisition of his company, Autonomy Corp.

The sailboat’s resting place lies about 50 meters (164 feet) underwater, a depth that required special precautions that complicated the work. Salvage teams said they were working in 12-minute shifts, a measure that slowed their efforts to reach the wreck’s cramped interior.

The yacht was moored about a kilometer (half a mile) offshore when a storm hit before 4 a.m. Monday. Civil defense officials said they believed the vessel was hit by a tornado on the water, known as a waterspout, and quickly sank.

Grainy CCTV footage taken from the coast, broadcast on the Giornale di Sicilia website, showed the 75-metre (246-foot) Bayesian illuminated tree weathering the storm and then disappearing within a minute.

The yacht’s captain survived, and prosecutors reportedly sought to question him.

Karsten Borner, captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, who rescued the 15 survivors who managed to get into a lifeboat, said he was close enough to see the Bayesian as the storm approached.

“The next thing you know, it was gone,” Borner said. “They said it hit the water and sank in two minutes,” he added, citing survivors.

Rotating search teams, each made up of two trained cave divers, worked Tuesday to open access points to enter the wreck, which lies at a depth well beyond what most recreational divers are certified to reach. They were using a remotely operated underwater vehicle, or ROV, to aid in the search.

Divers have not yet been able to access the cabins below deck because they are blocked by furniture that had shifted during the violent storm.

Rescue teams said they assumed the six missing were in those cabins because the storm hit when most people were sleeping, but crews did not check for their presence through portholes.

Charlotte Golunski, a survivor of the disaster, said she momentarily lost her grip on her 1-year-old daughter Sofia in the water but then managed to hold her up from the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The father, identified by ANSA as James Emslie, also survived, as did Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares. Among the missing is also Hannah Lynch, the couple’s eighteen-year-old daughter.

The yacht, built in 2008 by Italian firm Perini Navi, was available for charter and was famous for its imposing 75-metre (246-foot) high aluminium mast, one of the tallest in the world.

[Source: Al Jazeera and other News Agencies]

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