Divers in Italy are recovering the bodies of five missing passengers from British tech magnate Mike Lynch's sunken superyacht, while the search continues for one more. Rescue crews unloaded three body bags from rescue vessels that pulled into port at Porticello. Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, said two other bodies had also been found in the wreckage for a total of five.
The operation to search the hull on the seabed 50 meters underwater had quickly turned into a recovery one, not a rescue, given the amount of time that had passed, maritime experts said. The Bayesian, a 56-metre British-flagged yacht, went down in a storm early Monday as it was moored about a kilometre offshore. Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout, and sank quickly.
Fifteen people escaped in a lifeboat and were rescued by a nearby sailboat. One body was recovered Monday — that of the ship's chef, Recaldo Thomas, of Antigua. Italian officials previously listed Antigua as the nationality of someone on board.
The fate of six missing passengers had driven the search effort, including Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter and associates who had successfully defended him in a recent US federal fraud trial. Source: AAP / Yui Mok Meanwhile, investigators from the Termini Imerese Public Prosecutor's Office were acquiring evidence for their criminal investigation, which they opened immediately after the tragedy ev.