British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are among the six people missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of the Italian island of Sicily in the early hours of Monday morning.
The 56m (183ft) vessel was carrying 22 people including British, American and Canadian nationals. Fifteen people were rescued, including a one-year-old British girl, and authorities are continuing their search into the night.
Local media reported the yacht, named Bayesian, capsized at about 05:00 local time after encountering a heavy storm overnight that caused waterspouts, or rotating columns of air, to appear over the sea.
Mr Lynch, known by some as “the British Bill Gates”, co-founded software company Autonomy, which was later bought by tech giant Hewlett-Packard for $11bn (£8.6bn).
Witnesses told Italian news agency Ansa that the Bayesian’s anchor was down when the storm struck, causing the mast to break and the ship to lose its balance and sink off the coast of village Porticello, near Sicilian capital Palermo.
A waterspout is similar to a tornado and can form over oceans, seas or large lakes.
Divers have identified a wreckage 50m below the water’s surface and are searching for those missing.
The director general of Sicily’s civil protection agency, Salvatore Cocina, told the BBC Mr Lynch, his daughter Hannah Lynch and the yacht’s chef were among the missing.
He said the search, involving caving and rescue diving teams, would continue overnight.
The body of one man was found outside of the wreckage. His nationality has not been confirmed.
BBC Verify looked at corporate records and found the Bayesian’s ownership is tied to Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares.
Sources close to the matter have confirmed to the BBC Ms Bacares has been rescued.
Fifteen people managed to get to safety after the storm hit.
Ansa news agency reported a 35-year-old mother held her one-year-old daughter in her arms in the sea.
The woman, named as locally as Charlotte Golunski, said: “For two seconds I lost the little girl in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again amidst the fury of the waves.
“I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was stormy. Many were screaming.
“Luckily the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us managed to get on board.”
The baby is fine and the mother was treated with stitches, the agency said.
She added she had been on the boat with her husband, who is also safe, and colleagues from a London company.
A doctor based at the Di Cristina Hospital in Palermo, where some of the survivors were taken, said they were “very tired” and “constantly asking about the missing people”.
Dr Domenico Cipolla told Reuters news agency: “We have given the survivors this information, but they are talking and crying all the time because they have realised that there is little hope of finding their friends alive.”
Survivors said the trip has been organised by Mr Lynch for his work colleagues.
In the initial aftermath, a nearby Dutch-flagged vessel rescued survivors from the waves, tending to them until emergency services arrived.
Captain Karsten Borner said after the storm had passed, the crew noticed that the yacht that had been behind them had disappeared.
“We saw a red flare, so my first mate and I went to the position, and we found this life raft drifting,” he told Reuters.
That life raft was carrying 15 survivors, three of whom were “heavily injured”, he said.
Source BBC
