4 months ago
36 ARTICLE AD
Europe|Search to Resume for Missing Passengers of Yacht That Sank Off Sicily
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/world/europe/italy-yacht-palermo-search.html
Divers have been searching the hull of the Bayesian for passengers including the British entrepreneur Mike Lynch. Witnesses said it was hit by a waterspout during a sudden storm.
Aug. 20, 2024, 3:43 a.m. ET
Deep-sea divers with Italy’s firefighter corps were preparing to resume their search on Tuesday morning for six passengers — including a British software mogul and his daughter — who are missing after a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily the previous day.
There were 22 people on board the British-flagged Bayesian, a 180-foot sailing yacht, which was anchored offshore near the port of Porticello when it was hit by what eyewitnesses described as a waterspout, a small tornado on water, during a sudden and very violent storm.
Fifteen people managed to find safety on a raft and were rescued by the captain of a nearby sailing cruise ship.
The body of the ship’s cook was recovered on Monday, but several people are still unaccounted for, according to to Salvatore Cocina, an official with Sicily’s civil protection agency: Mike Lynch, a British technology entrepreneur, and his daughter Hannah; Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife; and Christopher J. Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, and his wife.
Prosecutors in the city of Termini Imerese, just east of where the yacht went down, have been charged with opening a formal investigation into the sinking and determining what led to it.
The search for the missing passengers began on Monday but was suspended late at night. “Access limited to the bridge deck, with difficulty due to the presence of furnishings obstructing passage,” the firefighters wrote on social media on Monday.
The ship was lying on its right side, at a depth of about 165 feet, meaning that divers, working in pairs, could enter it only for about 12 minutes at a time, said Luca Cari, the spokesman for Italy’s national firefighter corps.
“Obviously everything fell and the space is very tight,” Mr. Cari said. The divers were having to remove obstacles, like furnishings and electrical wiring, that were “completely blocking passages.”
“It’s a very complicated operation, very difficult,” he said.
Elisabetta Povoledo is a reporter based in Rome, covering Italy, the Vatican and the culture of the region. She has been a journalist for 35 years. More about Elisabetta Povoledo
