RACE AGAINST TIME Fears grow for Bayesian superyacht victims including Mike Lynch & daughter Hannah as divers ‘reach yacht’s lounge’
FEARS are growing for the missing passengers of the Bayesian superyacht with searchers believing they are still trapped inside the vessel.
The frantic hunt for survivors is into its second day as divers desperately look for a way to access the yacht's cabins 50m underwater.
The £14million luxury vessel capsized on Monday after it was hit by a tornado off the coast of Porticello, Sicily.
All six people missing are tragically believed to still be inside the wreck, the Italian Coast Guard has said.
They include Brit tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 57, who was hosting a celebration on the boat, and his daughter Hannah, 18.
Furniture has made it impossible for divers to move through the inside of the boat and reach the cabins.However, they have now opened a hole in the hull of the Bayesian to get in through another direction, Italian outlet Il Messaggero reports.
It comes as...
- 'UK's Bill Gates' Mike Lynch & his daughter Hannah, 18, remain missing on the wreck
- Also missing are Jonathan Bloomer, Judy Bloomer, Chris Morvillo and Neda Morvillo
- Lynch's wife revealed how she was awoken by a 'tilt' as the yacht sank
- The captain of the Bayesian broke his silence on the horror storm
- Experts believe the yacht's 'tallest mast in the world' may have contributed to the disaster
- Pictures showed the tiny raft that saved up to 15 people
- Frantic text messages from the survivors revealed the chaos
As time runs out, search and rescue workers only have 10 minutes working under water at a time.The divers had also been able to enter the boat via a ladder and reach the lounge, but they have had to find another way to reach other parts of the boat.
Vincenzo Zagarola, a spokesman for the coast guard, said they believe the missing people are still inside as the yacht sank in just a few minutes.
He said: “We think they are still inside the boat, that is our very hard idea. Our search and rescue activity by sea and air has gone on for around 36 hours.
“Of course, we do not exclude that they are not inside the boat, but we know the boat sank quickly.
“We suppose that the six people missing may not have had time to get out of the boat.”
Footage and pictures from the scene showed hordes of firefighters, divers and police scouring the water all day Monday, overnight and again today.
Although the 184ft yacht is lying "practically intact" on its side at the bottom of the sea, rescuers are struggling to get into it.
Diver Marco Tilotta said there is a "world of objects" including furniture and debris obstructing the narrow stairs in front of the yacht cabins.
This morning the UK government's Marine Accident Investigation Branch said four of its specialist cave divers were on their way to assist.
At around midday local time Tilotta told la Repubblica that rescuers had finished their first dive of the day and would go back down to try and "penetrate inside the vessel".
He said of those feared dead: "We will do everything we can to recover the bodies.
"The weather conditions are worsening but we hope to continue the operations without problems".
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" - a reference to the cruise ship that hit a rock underwater and capsized, killing 32, in 2012.
A huge search effort was launched as crew tried to get to those trapped in the small crevices of the cruise liner.
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."
He added: "(Divers) 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 passengers 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 and International chairman of bank giant Morgan Stanley, Brit Jonathan Bloomer, 70, along with his wife Judy.
Lynch's wife Angela Bacares, 57, suffered horrific injuries after walking across broken glass to get to safety.
Top New York lawyer Chris Morvillo, a solicitor at major firm Clifford Chance who worked for Mike Lynch, and his wife Neda are also missing.
Clifford Chance lawyer Ayla Ronald, 36, and her partner were among those rescued.
She shared the last picture believed to be taken from onboard the yacht.
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 Neda.
Extreme winds and rain battered the Porticello port near Palermo overnight on Sunday before the tragic accident.
It caused swirling twister-like columns of air, called waterspouts, to engulf 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 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 vessel 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.
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