Accident For Members Search for missing in Sicily yacht disaster resumes AFP/The Local - [email protected] Published: 20 Aug, 2024 CET. Updated: Tue 20 Aug 2024 08:23 CET Share Add a comment File photo of an Italian coast guard rescue boat moored in a Sicilian port. Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP Specialist divers on Tuesday morning launched a fresh search for six people, including UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter, who remained missing after their yacht capsized in a violent storm off Sicily's coast.
Advertisement The British-flagged Bayesian, which had 22 people aboard including 10 crew members, was anchored some 700 metres off the port of Porticello, east of Palermo, when it was struck by a waterspout before dawn on Monday. Lynch's wife Angela Bacares was among 15 people rescued, but the businessman and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were missing, Salvo Cocina, head of the Civil Protection Agency in Sicily, told AFP. Divers trained to work in tight spaces were flown in from Rome and Sardinia late on Monday, but a first search of the wreck some 50 metres underwater failed.
"Access was limited only to the bridge, with difficulty due to the presence of furniture obstructing passage", the Italian fire service said on X. The 56-metre-long luxury vessel was moored off Sicily's coast when violent winds and rains suddenly hit the area. "It was terrible.
The boat was hit by really strong wind and shortly after it went down," a British survivor named as Charlotte Golu.