AFP News
Divers in Sicily search for last missing shipwreck after Lynch’s body found
The body of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was recovered from his sunken yacht off Sicily on Thursday as the search continued for the last of the six missing people. Specialised divers were still searching for a missing woman, a coast guard official told AFP, with a source familiar with the investigation previously indicating that Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah had not yet been found. They pulled four bodies from the wreck of the Bayesian on Wednesday, while another was brought ashore at Porticello in the north of the Italian island near Palermo on Thursday morning. The latest gruesome discovery brings the death toll to six after the body of a man believed to be the yacht’s cook was found shortly after the vessel sank in a storm before dawn on Monday. The 56-metre (184-foot) British-flagged sailboat was anchored about 700 metres (2,300 ft) off Porticello, near Palermo in the north of the Italian island, when it was hit by a waterspout – similar to a mini-tornado. It sank within minutes. Fifteen people were rescued, including Lynch’s wife, but the businessman and his daughter were among the six missing. – ‘Mistake’ – The passengers were guests of 59-year-old Lynch – a celebrated technology entrepreneur and investor sometimes described as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates – who was celebrating his recent acquittal in a massive US fraud trial. Lynch’s lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda, as well as Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy were also among the missing. Many questions remain about why the yacht sank, and on Thursday the boss of the company that built the boat said the tragedy could have been avoided. “Everything that has been done reveals a very long series of mistakes,” said Giovanni Costantino, head of Italy’s Sea Group, which includes the Perini Navi company that built Bayesian. He told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that bad weather had been forecast and all passengers should have gathered at a pre-arranged assembly point with all doors and hatches closed. Footage from the ship’s security cameras from shore showed the lights on the mast going out, which Costantino said indicated a short circuit, meaning the ship had already taken on water. “A Perini ship withstood Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane. Do you think it can’t withstand a tornado from here?” he told the newspaper.- ‘Caught like mice’ -Costantino said it was “good practice when the ship is at anchor to have a watchman on the bridge and if there was one, he wouldn’t have been able to miss the storm”. “Instead, water started pouring into the ship while the guests were still in the cabin… They ended up in a trap, these poor people ended up like mice in a trap,” he said. Built in 2008 by Italian shipbuilding company Perini Navi, the Bayesian featured a 75-metre-high mast, the tallest aluminium sailing mast in the world, according to the website Charter World. It was reportedly owned by Lynch’s family. Lynch was acquitted of all charges by a San Francisco court in June after being accused of $11 billion in fraud related to the sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard. A co-defendant, former Autonomy executive Stephen Chamberlain, died after being hit by a car in England on Saturday. Italian authorities have launched an investigation into the fraud. Sinking, while the British Marine Accident Investigation Department sent four inspectors to Palermo.bur-ide/ar/rox
