Mike Lynch, the British tech magnate, and five other people were missing after their luxury superyacht sank during a freak storm off Sicily early Monday, Italy’s civil protection and authorities said. Lynch’s wife and 14 other people survived.
Lynch was among six people who remain unaccounted for after their chartered sailboat sank off Porticello, near Palermo, sometime after 4 a.m. A tornado over the water known as a waterspout had struck the area overnight, said Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency.
One body was recovered, and police divers spent the day trying to reach the hull of the ship, which was resting at a depth of 50 meters (163 feet) off Porticello where it had been anchored, rescue authorities said. They returned to the site after 10 p.m. to see if it would be possible to search through the night, when weather conditions were expected to worsen, said Luca Cari, spokesman of the fire rescue service.
The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is deploying a team of four inspectors to Italy to conduct a preliminary assessment.
Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s king of technology, was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp.
The ship had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, the Italian coast guard said. A sudden fierce storm had battered the area overnight, and a waterspout struck precisely where the 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian had been moored.
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