1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
Russia's war in UkraineGerman election 2025COP29 climate talks
CatastropheItaly

Sicily yacht: Body of UK's Mike Lynch recovered

August 22, 2024

UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter were among the missing. Lynch's body was brought to shore on Thursday. The yacht capsized due to an unexpected weather event.

https://p.dw.com/p/4jlTA
Rescuers load a body bag onto a coast guard ship on August 21, 2024.
Another body from the sunken yacht has been recovered to shoreImage: Guglielmo Mangiapane/REUTERS

Rescue divers in Italy have brought to shore a fifth body from a yacht that sank off the coast of Italy. Italian officials later confirmed media reports that it was British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch. This leaves one person still unaccounted for.

The body of Lynch's 18-year-old daughter Hannah is believed to be the one still missing.

Body of UK tech tycoon Lynch recovered from sunken yacht

What happened to the yacht?

The superyacht known as the Bayesian belonged to the wife of UK tech entrepreneur Lynch, who had just been acquitted in a major fraud trial in the US. It has been reported that the yacht trip was a celebration of that acquittal.

Early on Monday morning, sudden bad weather pushed the yacht out to sea and capsized it. It came to rest some 50 meters (55 yards) under the surface.

Emergency services in Italy have noted that the dark conditions so far beneath the surface have hampered rescue efforts.

"Everything that was done reveals a very long summation of errors," said Giovanni Costantino, head of the Italian Sea Group, which includes the Perini Navi company that built the Bayesian yacht.

He told Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper that bad weather was forecast and all the passengers should have been gathered at the assembly point, all the doors and hatches closed. 

Five bodies found in wreck of luxury yacht off Sicily

Who has been rescued and who is missing?

The yacht was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew. 15 people were rescued after the sinking on Monday, including the Bayesian's owner Angela Bacares.

British tourist Charlotte Golunski and her baby also survived. Golunski said she held her daughter aloft over the waves to keep her from drowning.

Lynch and his and Bacares' younger daughter, Hannah, were among the missing. As is Chris Morvillo, the American lawyer who represented Lynch in his fraud trial, and his wife Neda Morvillo.

British banker Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy Bloomer were also unaccounted for.

"This is an unimaginable grief to shoulder," the Bloomer family said in a statement on Thursday, saying that Jonathan and Judy "were incredible people and an inspiration to many, but first and foremost they were focused on and loved their family and spending time with their new grandchildren."

es/rmt (AFP, Reuters)