Scuba divers searching the wreck of a superyacht that sank off Sicily have found two bodies, as the search continues for four more missing passengers, and questions intensify about why the vessel sank so quickly.
The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long superyacht, was carrying 22 people, and was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it capsized during a fierce storm on Monday.
Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout, and sank quickly.
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Fifteen people escaped in a lifeboat and were rescued by a nearby sailboat, while the body of the onboard chef, Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, was recovered on Monday.
Rescuers have been searching for the six that were unaccounted for, including British tech magnate Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah Lynch; Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International, his wife, Judy Bloomer; Chris Morvillo, a prominent lawyer, and his wife, Neda Morvillo.
Divers moved one body bag from a rescue vessel to an ambulance at the Porticello port on Wednesday. Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, said a second corpse had also been found.
One of the bodies belonged to a heavily built man, a source said, however, authorities have not confirmed any details.
The discovery indicated that the operation to search the wreckage on the seabed was a recovery one, not a rescue, given the amount of time that had passed and no signs of life had emerged over three days of searching, experts said.
Lynch, 59, is one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and has been referred to as the country’s Bill Gates.
He built the UK’s largest software firm, Autonomy, which was sold to HP for US$11 billion in 2011, after which the deal spectacularly unravelled with the US tech giant accusing him of fraud, resulting in a lengthy trial.
Lynch was acquitted on all charges by a jury in San Francisco in June.
Morvillo represented Lynch in the San Francisco trial, while Bloomer was a character witness on his behalf.
Angela Barcares, Lynch’s wife, was also on board the yacht and survived. Speaking to the Italian daily La Repubblica while sitting in a wheelchair in a Sicilian hospital, Bacares said she was woken at 4am local time as the boat tilted.
She said she and her husband were initially not concerned but became worried when the windows of the yacht shattered.
Inspection of the wreck, lying sideways at a depth of about 50m, was a “long and complex” operation, Italian authorities said, due to numerous obstacles and narrow passages inside the ship obstructed by debris.
Because of the depth of the wreck – scuba divers working in tag teams can also only spend about 12 minutes beneath the water before needing to resurface.
The limited dive time is designed in part to avoid decompression sickness, also known as the “bends,” which can occur when divers stay underwater for long periods and ascend too quickly, allowing nitrogen gas dissolved in the blood to form bubbles.
Separately, the Coast Guard deployed a remotely operated vehicle to scan the seabed and take underwater pictures that it said may provide “useful and timely elements” for investigators from the Termini Imerese Public Prosecutor’s Office looking into the disaster.
The Coast Guard has been questioning survivors, including the captain of the Bayesian, and passengers on the yacht that was moored next to it who witnessed the ship going down, judicial sources said.
No one is under investigation at the moment, sources added.
A ‘black swan’ event
Experts have been at a loss to explain how a large luxury vessel, presumed to have top-class fittings and safety features, could have sunk within minutes, as recounted by witnesses.
The Sir Robert Baden Powell sailboat anchored next to it was largely spared and managed to rescue the 15 survivors.
The Bayesian, which was owned by Lynch’s wife, was built by Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi in 2008 and last refitted in 2020.
It had the world’s tallest aluminium mast, measuring 72 metres, according to its makers.
Its captain James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealander who survived the shipwreck, was a “very good sailor” and “very well respected” in the Mediterranean, his brother Mark told the NZ Herald.
Matthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, a UK-based non-profit organisation that trains sea rescuers, said the Bayesian was the victim of a “high impact” weather-related incident.
“If it was a water spout, which it appears to be, it’s what I would class as like a ‘black swan’ event,” he told Reuters, referring to a rare and unpredictable phenomenon.
He said he was confident the authorities would “get to the bottom” of what caused the shipwreck, thanks to the accounts of survivors, witnesses and examination of the sunken hull, which did not show any apparent signs of damage.
– with CNN, Reuters and AP