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Four bodies have been recovered from the wreck of the superyacht Bayesian after it sank in a freak storm off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of Monday. A fifth body remains in the sailboat while the whereabouts of the sixth missing person remain unknown.
Tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among the six people unaccounted for after his vessel sank at around 5am near the Sicilian capital of Palermo, having been caught in a violent tornado, known as a waterspout.
The other four passengers who have been missing since the disaster are Morgan Stanley International chair Jonathan Bloomer; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Chris Morvillo, a lawyer with Clifford Chance; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.
Identities of the recovered bodies have not been confirmed by authorities, despite local and international media reporting some had been identified.
As the body bags were taken back to the port of Porticello on Wednesday afternoon, dozens of emergency services staff were waiting, and one bag was seen being put in the back of an ambulance.
The search operation was suspended on Wednesday evening and will resume on Thursday morning, with the process of bringing the fifth body to shore being described by Salvatore Cocina, from Sicily’s civil protection agency, as “ongoing”. He also said there will be an investigation in due course, but the priority is finding the missing.
The body of Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working on the 56-metre vessel as a chef, was previously discovered on Monday, with tributes describing him as a “well-loved, kind human being”.
Emergency services rescued 15 other passengers and crew from a lifeboat, which included a one-year-old baby and Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, who is said to be in a “state of shock and sadness”.
Lynch, 59, had recently made headlines after being acquitted of a $11bn (£8.64bn) fraud case in June regarding the sale of his software giant Autonomy to US company Hewlett Packard.
It is understood that the trip onboard his yacht had been a celebration, with “collaborators and colleagues” invited onboard.
However, a freak weather incident caused the yacht to capsize, with authorities now investigating whether hatches had been left open by crew members as well as looking into onboard safety measures.
Fire crews described the operation as “complex”, with divers limited to 12-minute underwater shifts and debris and furniture cluttering the narrow spaces within the boat.
Inspections of the yacht’s internal hull took place on Wednesday morning, while a team of four British inspectors from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) also arrived in Porticello to look at the site of the sinking.
The MAIB is looking into what happened because the Bayesian was flying a union jack, it is understood.
The Italian Coastguard said the MAIB is not involved in the search for the missing people, and that it has not been requested to assist.
A helicopter was drafted in to help the search effort, as divers from the local fire service were seen entering the water with torches attached to their headgear.
Once dubbed the “British Bill Gates”, Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares were valued at £852m in 2023 by The Sunday Times Rich List.
Lynch founded Autonomy using technology he developed as a Cambridge student and was awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to enterprise.
After selling the company to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011, a decade-long legal battle ensued. HP claimed, just a year after the sale, that Lynch had used accounting tricks to artificially inflate its value before the sale.
He was extradited to the US last May for a trial that acquitted him on all 15 counts. Lynch had told Radio 4 earlier this month that being acquitted was “indescribable” and believed he could only clear his name because of his huge wealth.
In an interview, he spoke of his plans to spend the summer months on holiday.
Charlotte Golunski, who survived alongside her husband and baby, told la Reppublica she held her one-year-old daughter, Sofia, to stop her from drowning.
She said: “I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.
“It was all dark. In the water, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.”
She described being woken by “thunder, lightning and waves that made our boat dance”, adding: “It was the end of the world and my husband and I were struggling to stand up.”
The luxury boat, which had been cruising along the Italian coastline, was owned by Revtom, a company registered to Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares.
