Specialist divers on Tuesday launched a fresh search for six people, including UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch and the chairman of Morgan Stanley International, missing since their yacht capsized off the Italian island of Sicily.
The British-flagged Bayesian, which had 22 people aboard including 10 crew, was anchored some 700 metres from port before dawn Monday when it was struck by a waterspout, a sort of mini tornado.
Fifteen people aboard, including a mother with a one-year-old baby, were plucked to safety; one man has been found dead; and six people remain missing.
On Tuesday, three divers strapped on oxygen bottles and began their descent to the wreck, some 50 metres below the sea surface.
Most of those aboard the yacht were British, and the passengers were guests of Lynch, celebrating his recent acquittal in a massive US fraud case, according to Italian media.
Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares was among 15 people rescued, but the businessman and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were missing, according to Salvo Cocina, head of the Civil Protection Agency in Sicily.
The chair of Morgan Stanley International, Jonathan Bloomer, who testified for Lynch, was also missing alongside his wife, Judy, the UK insurer Hiscox said on Tuesday.
Bloomer is also the chair of Hiscox, which issued a statement saying it was “deeply shocked and saddened” by the incident.
Christopher Morvillo of law firm Clifford Chance, who represented Lynch, had also been on the boat along with his wife, media reports said.
Lynch, 59, is a celebrated technology sector entrepreneur and investor, sometimes referred to as the UK’s answer to Bill Gates.
Lynch was acquitted on all charges in a San Francisco court in early June after he was accused of an $11 billion fraud linked to the sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard. (AFP)