Controversial British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who was recently acquitted of fraud charges in the US, is reportedly missing after the superyacht he was aboard sank off the coast of Sicily.
The 56-metre superyacht, named “Bayesian”, sank early on Monday morning near Porticello, Palermo, due to bad weather.
Of the 12 passengers and 10 crew members on board, one was killed and six, including Lynch, are missing, according to the Associated Press.
The remaining 15 people on board were rescued, the BBC reported.
A statement from Bagheria city council cited by CNBC News said the area was hit by a strong storm and tornado about an hour before the ship sank.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bakales, was among those rescued, according to the BBC.
Another rescued passenger, Charlotte Emslie, described how she managed to keep her one-year-old child alive by keeping his head above water.
“I used all my strength to keep her afloat, stretching her arms out so she wouldn’t drown,” she told a reporter from Italian news agency La Repubblica, as translated by the BBC.
“It was pitch black. I couldn’t keep my eyes open in the water. I screamed for help but all I could hear was other people screaming around me.”
Salvo Cocina, head of Sicily’s civil defence, said divers had spotted “a body through a porthole” of the sunken ship during the rescue operation, according to Sky News.
The ship discovered a man’s body 50 metres below sea level, and local media reported that it was the ship’s chef, but Business Insider was unable to verify this.
The superyacht is owned by Revtom Ltd, a company registered in the Isle of Man.
Among the missing are the captain of a nearby ship and the owner of the Baysian, Reuters reported.
The local fire department told CNBC News that “divers, motorboats and helicopters” were assisting in the search.
But Italian authorities are baffled that the missing passengers have so far not been found.
“They’ve been searching all day with helicopters and boats but they haven’t found anything. In these circumstances they should have found something by now. They don’t,” Francesco Venuto, a spokesman for Sicily’s civil defence, told Sky News, adding: “They should be there.” [in the boat]”
Lynch, founder of British software company Autonomy, was acquitted of multi-billion-dollar fraud charges by a San Francisco jury in June.
He was first extradited to the United States last year to face charges that he artificially inflated Autonomy’s value in order to defraud Hewlett-Packard, which bought the company in 2011 for $11 billion.
In November 2012, HP announced an $8.8 billion impairment charge related to its acquisition of Autonomy, of which $5 billion was due to “accounting irregularities” that led HP to significantly overpay for Autonomy.
Lynch, a former British government adviser, has always maintained his innocence. His lawyers have said the charges were a “travesty of justice” and “untenable in a US court.”
In a post-acquittal interview published late last month, Lynch told The Times that he had feared he would die in prison if convicted, but was excited about the chance at a second life.
“I had to say goodbye to everything and everyone because I may never come back,” Lynch told the outlet. “If this had gone the wrong way, life as I know it would have ended in every sense.”
Lynch also told the Times that the acquittal had strengthened him emotionally and prompted him to consider what he called “St. Peter’s questions.”
“So before I get on the elevator to the basement, I arrive at the Gate of Heaven and I ask St. Peter, ‘You know what, just before I went in, what was that all about? What was that?'” Lynch told the outlet.
The tech tycoon, who could face more than 20 years in prison if convicted, was preparing to launch a campaign to help wrongly accused Britons in the US, according to the Telegraph.
A representative for Mike Lynch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.