British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are reported to be among several people missing after a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday.
The 59-year-old was sailing with a group off the Sicilian capital of Palermo when the vessel got caught in a violent storm, Reuters reported, citing a person familiar with the rescue operation.
His wife, Angela Bacares, was among those rescued, according to the Financial Times, which also reported Lynch and his daughter Hannah being among those missing.
A total of 22 people were on board the vessel at the time of the incident, 10 of whom were crew members. The Italian Coast Guard has rescued 15 people and pulled one body from the water, while six people remained missing, the Financial Times reported.
Lynch is the former chief executive of software company Autonomy, which was sold to Hewlett Packard in 2011 for $11 billion. The sale led to allegations that he defrauded Hewlett Packard by fraudulently inflating Autonomy’s revenue before the sale.
He faced decades in prison but was ultimately acquitted this past June of fraud and conspiracy charges.
Rescuers recover the body of one of the victims of the UK flag vessel Bayesan that sunk early Monday off the Sicilian village of Porticello near Palermo.
Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency told reporters that the boat was struck by a tornado, also known as a waterspout.
“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said, according to The Associated Press. He noted that another superyacht in the area wasn’t as badly damaged.
The vessel was overturned while the passengers were sleeping, the head of a pediatric emergency room in Palermo told local media, according to The Telegraph, after meeting with a mother who escaped the yacht with her baby.
“She told me that she was in the water for no more than two, three seconds, and she managed to save the baby, to keep her arms up, and then, with the others, they were able to get on the lifeboat, and then, I think, they were rescued by the Coast Guard,” said Dr. Domenico Cipolla at the Giovanni di Cristina pediatric hospital.
Video posted on social media shows search and rescue operations over the water, including a helicopter and dive team. Photos also captured a bodybag being lifted into an ambulance.
