ROME — Six people remain missing, including two Americans and a British technology entrepreneur and his daughter, after a large luxury yacht sank in a heavy storm off the coast of Sicily in southern Italy on Tuesday. The 184-foot-long Bayesian was anchored about a half-mile off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, with 22 people on board, including 10 crew members and 12 passengers.
The ship sank at around 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday) after being hit by a water tornado believed to have been caused by the storm. Italian media reported that strong winds had broken one of the ship’s masts, causing the vessel to lose balance and capsize.
Fifteen of the passengers managed to escape from the yacht and were rescued by a Dutch vessel anchored nearby, and were evacuated to shore by the Italian Coast Guard and fire brigade.
Reuters
The body of one unidentified man has been found but six others remain missing, including British software tycoon Mike Lynch, once described as Britain’s Bill Gates.
Lynch was acquitted in the United States in June of fraud charges that could have carried decades in prison. In an unusual move, Lynch’s co-defendant in the fraud case, who was also acquitted, was killed by a car while jogging in Britain on Saturday.
Mr Lynch’s teenage daughter Hannah is among the missing, as are his American lawyer, former New York assistant district attorney Chris Morbillo, and his wife, Neda. Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International and a British banker, also remained missing on Tuesday.
Michael Liedtke/AP
Among the survivors was a one-year-old British girl who was being treated in a nearby hospital with her parents, who Italian media said were in good condition.
“For two seconds I had my child overboard, but I quickly managed to grab her again in the midst of the raging waves,” Italy’s ANSA news agency quoted the girl’s mother, who only gave her name as Charlotte, as saying. “I was holding her tightly in the stormy sea. Many people were screaming. Luckily the lid of the life raft opened and 11 of us managed to get on.”
“The conditions were terrible,” she told ANSA. “Within a matter of minutes the ship was hit by strong winds and sank shortly afterwards.”
Superyacht Times
Carsten Borner, captain of the Dutch ship which rushed to the rescue, told the ANSA news agency that it was anchored close to the Beisean.
“After the storm subsided, we noticed the boat behind us had disappeared and we saw a red flare, so myself and the chief mate went to the location and found a life raft adrift. Inside was a small baby and the owner’s wife.”
Rescue efforts resumed on Tuesday with speedboats, helicopters and divers continuing to search for those missing and to understand what caused the state-of-the-art superyacht to disappear in an instant.
Italian media said fire brigade divers had reached the ship and found bodies trapped in some of the cabins, but had not been able to extract any of the victims from inside by Tuesday due to obstacles. The Basian is believed to have sunk in about 160 feet of water.
Reuters
Witnesses said the ship sank quickly.
“I was at home when the tornado hit,” fisherman Pietro Asciuto told local news media. “I immediately closed all the windows. Then I saw the ship. It had only one mast and was very big. Suddenly I saw it sinking. The ship was still floating, but suddenly it disappeared. I saw it sinking with my own eyes.”
Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily’s civil defense department, told CBS News partner BBC News that three of the six people still missing on Monday were British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch, whose company, Autonomy Corporation PLC, was killed in a traffic accident. Acquired by HP in 2011one of his daughters, Hannah Lynch, believed to be 18, and the ship’s chef, Ricardo Thomas.
CBS News obtained corporate documents that show a company called Revtom, solely owned by Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacalez, who was among those rescued from the accident, as the owner of the yacht that capsized off the coast of Sicily.
The yacht was a privately owned pleasure boat, but the waters around the island have seen many losses of life over the past decade.
Dozens of immigrants They died trying to reach Sicily and other small Italian islands. Sicily lies just 100 miles off the eastern coast of Tunisia in North Africa, and the Mediterranean crossing is a frequent source of both rescues and tragedies, with smugglers regularly dumping small boats full of distressed people at sea.
Alex Sandby,
Chris Livesey contributed to this report.
