Divers face obstacles in search for tech, law and business industry leaders on sunken yacht
Missing revealed as divers search superyacht that sank in storm off Sicily
ROME — Rescue teams and divers were searching Tuesday for six missing people, including a British tech magnate and a Morgan Stanley boss,after a luxury superyacht sank in a storm off Sicily.
The identity of those still missing emerged after an initial search of the 184-foot sailboat, named the Bayesian, was unsuccessful Monday. The British-flagged tourist vessel had 22 people aboard when it sank because of “a violent storm” off Sicily’s main city, Palermo, around 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. ET) on Monday, the local coast guard said.
Newly released video shows the moment the vessel suddenly sank after being battered by the storm. In the video, the 250-foot mast, which was lit up and lashed by the storm, appears to bend to one side before it disappears and is replaced by darkness.
The grainy images obtained by NBC News and other outlets were recorded on closed-circuit television not far from where the Bayesian was anchored.
Fifteen people were rescued by a boat present in the immediate vicinity and then brought ashore by coast guard vessels, but six passengers, including American, British and Canadian citizens, remained missing, it said. They were believed to be trapped in the boat’s hull, some 164 feet underwater, posing a challenge to divers who returned Tuesday to the site off Porticello, near Palermo.
Salvatore Cocina, director of Sicily’s Civil Protection Agency, told NBC News that the missing include British tech magnate Mike Lynch and his daughter, Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife.
Cocina did not specify the nationalities of the missing. He also did not identify Lynch’s daughter or the wives of Bloomer and Morvillo.
A spokesperson for Clifford Chance, where Morvillo works as a lawyer, confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday that he and his wife, Neda, were among the missing.
Aki Hussain, chief executive officer of U.K. insurance company Hiscox, where Bloomer is a nonexecutive chairman, confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday that Bloomer and his wife, Judy, were missing.
Italy’s national fire department said that its divers were able to get inside the wreck during a late-night dive Monday, inspecting some cabins under the bridge, but were having trouble navigating because of obstructions and narrow access gates. One of those obstructions was reported to have been caused by furniture from the cabins that moved during the storm that struck the ship early Monday.
Rescuers said that there might be bodies inside the cabins, especially considering the timing of the storm,but that they had so far been unable to check through the ship’s portholes.
Divers were forced to work in 12-minute underwater search shifts because of the depth, while surface searches continued in the area of the shipwreck with a helicopter and a fire brigade boat, it added.
Mike Lynch, who was regularly described in U.K. media as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” was cleared of fraud charges in a blockbuster U.S. trial earlier this summer. Sources told CNBC on Monday that his wife, Angela Bacares, has been rescued. Italian news agency ANSA identified his daughter, missing alongside her father, as Hannah, 18.
Just days earlier, Lynch’s co-defendant, Stephen Chamberlain, died after being “fatally struck by a car” while out running Saturday, his lawyer Gary Lincenberg said in an emailed statement.
The sailing vacation that ended in tragedy appeared to be something of a celebration after Lynch’s acquittal — Morvillo was one of Lynch’s U.S. lawyers and Bloomer testified in his defense.
“We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event. Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular our Chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife Judy, who are among the missing,” Hussain, the Hiscox CEO, said in an emailed statement.
A Morgan Stanley spokesperson also said: “Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular the Bloomer family, as we all wait for further news from this terrible situation.”
The Eve Appeal, a British cancer charity, described Judy Bloomer in an emailed statement as “a brilliant champion for women’s health and medical research.”
Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch said it was deploying a team of four inspectors to Palermo to conduct a preliminary assessment.
The coast guard said in a statement Monday that the ship’s cook had died. It did not give his nationality. Reuters identified him as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.
One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Emsley, 35, told the Italian news agency ANSA that she had momentarily lost hold of her year-old daughter, Sofia, in the water but managed to retrieve her and hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were pulled to safety.
Built by Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi in 2008, the U.K.-registered, Bayesian can carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist yacht sites.
The yacht’s nearly 250-foot mast is the tallest aluminum sailing mast in the world, according to CharterWorld Luxury Yacht Charters.
Luca Mercalli, an Italian climatologist and president of the country’s meteorological society, told Reuters that the storm could have involved a waterspout, essentially a tornado over water, or a downburst, a more frequent phenomenon that doesn’t involve the rotation of the air.
Storms and heavy rainfall have swept Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat.
“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees more than normal,” Mercalli said. “This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms.”
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NBC News