Italian divers were on Tuesday continuing their seabed search for the British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and five other passengers missing after the sinking of a luxury yacht in a “catastrophic” storm off Sicily, as hopes faded of any miracle survival.
Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among those still to be found, along with Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of UK insurance firm Hiscox who is also the president of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy, and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife.
All were among the 22 passengers on board luxury yacht the Bayesian for what was said to have been a celebration to mark Mr Lynch’s dramatic acquittal earlier this summer over fraud charges in the US. He had feared spending years in prison if convicted in a case in which American prosecutors accused him of conspiring to inflate the value of his software company Autonomy before its sale to the US giant Hewlett Packard in 2011 in an $11 billion deal.
But the party turned to disaster early on Monday when a huge waterspout and storm caused by the warming of the Mediterranean after recent intense heat led to Mr Lynch’s yacht being thrown on its side and engulfed by waves.
As Tuesday’s rescue effort continued, video footage showed divers entering the water this morning and rescue vessels setting off to either retrieve bodies or discover whether air bubbles inside the yacht, which is lying around 50 metres down on the seabed, might have enabled any of those yet to be found to continue breathing underwater.
The Italian fire department, whose divers are conducting the search, said attempts last night to check throughout the stricken vessel had been thwarted by furniture blocking access to cabins. There were no further immediate updates on the progress of the search, however, as friends and family of those missing waited anxiously for news.
The chief executive of Hiscox, Aki Hussain, said he and colleagues were “deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event”.
He added: “Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular our chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife Judy, who are among the missing, and with their family as they await further news from this terrible situation.”
Morgan Stanley said it was also “shocked and saddened by this tragedy” and said its thoughts were with “all those affected”.
There were also questions today about why the luxury yacht failed to cope with the storm and whether weather warnings in place at the time could have been acted upon.
Matthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, said the fact that survivors had entered the life raft from the water, rather than leaving the yacht in it, indicated that the disaster had been a “catastrophic incident that has gone very quickly” and that the size of the yacht’s 76m mast was likely to have been a factor.
“This was a very advanced, modern commercial vessel and to suffer such a catastrophic failure and subsequent sinking is a real concern,“ he said.
Meanwhile, survivor Charlotte Golunski, who held her one-year-old baby above the waves until they were rescued, told how it felt like “the end of the world” as she was thrown into the water.
