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Moscow and Kyiv swap prisoners of war as Ukraine marks independence anniversary

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine have exchanged over 100 prisoners of war as Kyiv marked its third Independence Day since Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Ukraine said the 115 servicemen who were freed were conscripts, many of whom were taken prisoner in the first months of Russia’s invasion. Among them are nearly 50 soldiers captured by Russian forces from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. The Russian Defense Ministry said the 115 Russian soldiers had been captured in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia two weeks ago. The ministry said the soldiers were currently in Belarus, but would be taken to Russia for medical treatment and rehabilitation.

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Five bodies found in sunken superyacht, officials say

Divers have found five bodies in the sunken wreckage of a superyacht that sank off Sicily this week, Italian officials told news agencies and local media Wednesday, leaving one person still missing.

Three bodies were brought ashore and two others were also found inside the shipwreck, Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, told the Associated Press, after divers were photographed by the agency unloading body bags. Cocina did not identify the deceased.

The British-flagged, 183-foot-long Bayesian was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew members roughly half a mile from the Sicilian fishing village of Porticello when it encountered what authorities called a “violent storm” about 4 a.m. Monday.

Of the 15 people rescued, eight – including a 1-year-old girl – were taken to hospitals in conditions that were not life-threatening. The body of the yacht’s chef, identified as Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan, was found during initial recovery efforts.

Among the passengers was Mike Lynch, 59, the British founder of the tech venture capital firm Invoke Capital and co-founder of the tech firms Autonomy and Darktrace. This summer, he was acquitted of all charges after a decadelong U.S. fraud trial related to the 2011 sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.

The voyage on the Bayesian, owned by a company controlled by Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was intended to be a celebration of his legal victory, Britain’s Telegraph reported.

Among those missing were Lynch; his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah; Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and attorney Chris Morvillo, a partner at Clifford Chance in New York who represented Lynch in the recently concluded legal battle, and his wife, Neda. Bacares, Lynch’s wife, was among the survivors.

It’s not clear exactly what type of storm struck the Bayesian, but weather data suggests it was probably a tornadic waterspout or severe thunderstorm.

Charlotte Golunski, a guest of Lynch who was rescued, described to Italian media holding onto her 1-year-old daughter, Sophie, amid the storm. “For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea,” she told Giornale di Sicilia. “Then I immediately hugged her again amid the fury of the waves.”

Lynch sold Autonomy, which was once England’s biggest software company, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for more than $11 billion. He was subsequently accused of overvaluing the company and was charged in the United States with fraud. He was acquitted in June.

The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Italian shipmaker Perini Navi, according to the SuperYacht Times.

The Sir Robert, a Dutch-flagged sailing vessel anchored nearby, responded immediately to help survivors before the Italian coast guard arrived.

The yacht sank to a depth of more than 160 feet. The first attempt by fire-brigade cave divers to search inside the yacht was unsuccessful, rescue authorities said.

Bryan Pietsch contributed to this report.

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Breaking news, new zealand lawyer ayla ronald’s chilling text to father revealed after surviving bayesian superyacht sinking.

One survivor of the doomed Bayesian , who is “very shaken” after escaping the superyacht’s sinking off the coast of Sicily, shared a disturbing revelation with her father.

Ayla Ronald, a senior associate at law firm Clifford Chance, was one of 22 aboard the British-flagged ship when a tornado struck the area where it was anchored around 5 a.m. Monday.

Ronald, 36, and her partner, Matthew Fletcher, were invited aboard the Bayesian to celebrate tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s acquittal in “one of Silicon Valley’s biggest-ever fraud cases” alongside his friends and family.

“Ayla is a lawyer who is part of the legal team that was invited to go sailing as a result of the success in the recent United States court case,” Ronald’s father, Lin Ronald, told the Telegraph.

“I have texted my daughter and she hasn’t given me any updates about missing personnel or saved personnel,” he said.

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“She has only said to me that there are deaths, and she and her partner are alive.”

Ayla Ronald’s phone was the only one with a battery and she was helping coordinate with the first responders, according to the New Zealand Herald.

Lin told the outlet that his daughter is “very shaken” following the incident.

The Christchurch, NZ, native studied at the University of Otago in New Zealand before moving to London, where she worked for several years.

”We are in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident,” Clifford Chance said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with our Partner, Christopher Morvillo, and his wife Neda who are among the missing, and with their families.”

“Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident,” the statement continued. “Our thoughts extend to the other passengers and crew and all those affected.”

What to know after a tornado sank the yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily:

• A superyacht capsized off the coast of Sicily after a tornado hit the area early Monday, killing seven passengers.
• British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was identified as one of the bodies pulled from the wreckage. His teenage daughter, Hannah, was the final one to be recovered.
• Lynch — known as “Britain’s Bill Gates” — had invited guests from Clifford Chance, a legal firm that represented him, and Invoke Capital, his own company, on the voyage,  according to the Telegraph . 
• Security camera footage shot from 650 feet from where the  Bayesian sank Monday  shows it disappearing.
• A rare and unexpected “black swan” weather event may have led to the  Bayesian’s speedy demise , maritime experts say.

Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, Jonathan Bloomer, a chairman at Morgan Stanley International, and his wife, Judy, are among the six still missing.

Angela Bacares, the owner of the yacht and Lynch’s wife, was among 15 people rescued.

One body, believed to be the ship’s chef, Canadian-born Thomas Recaldo, was recovered from the wreck.

Lynch’s three-month trial played out in San Francisco federal court and centered on allegations that Lynch schemed to inflate his software company Autonomy’s revenue when he sold it to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011.

Within a year, the US tech company was forced to down-value Autonomy’s worth by $8.8 billion.

A jury found Lynch, 59, not guilty on all 15 conspiracy and wire fraud charges on June 6.

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5 things to know for Aug. 21: DNC, Chicago protests, RFK Jr., Ukraine, Superyacht sinks

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5. Superyacht sinks

Italian authorities continued their search today for six missing people after a tornado sank a luxury yacht Monday off the coast of Sicily. Fifteen passengers were rescued from the boat shortly after it capsized, according to Italy’s Coast Guard. One body was later recovered from the hull of the stricken vessel, called the “Bayesian.” Two Americans and four Britons are among those missing — including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch , Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a prominent lawyer. Initial reports suggest a small waterspout, which developed over the area Monday, could have been behind the yacht’s sinking.

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Canadian dead, several others missing after superyacht capsizes off Sicilian coast

Mother who survived held 1-year-old daughter above waves until rescue.

Canadian dead, others missing after superyacht sinks near Sicily

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A Canadian man has died after a luxury yacht was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm and sank off the coast of Sicily early on Monday, local officials said.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long sailboat, was carrying 22 people and was anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello when it was hit by ferocious weather, the Italian coast guard said in a statement.

Eyewitnesses said the superyacht vanished quickly beneath the waves shortly before dawn. Fifteen people escaped before it went down, including a one-year-old girl.

The Palermo Port Authority told CBC News officials recovered the body of Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian-born man who had been living in Antigua. He had been the ship's on-board cook.

Some media, including CBC, had earlier mistakenly reported his name as Thomas Recaldo or Ricardo Thomas.

Global Affairs Canada said it was "aware of reports" Canadian citizen had died.

"We extend our deepest sympathies to everyone affected by this tragic event," it said in a statement.

• What we know about the capsized superyacht off the Sicilian coast

Six other people were missing after the sinking, including British tech magnate Mike Lynch, his teenage daughter Hannah and Jonathan Bloomer, president of Morgan Stanley International, La Republicca reported.

The Italian coast guard said those who were missing had British, American and Canadian nationalities.

'The ship behind us was gone'

"The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude," a coast guard official in the Sicilian capital Palermo told Reuters.

Salvo Cocina of Sicily's civil protection agency said a mini tornado known as a waterspout that forms above the water had struck the area overnight. 

Eight of the 15 people rescued were transferred to local hospitals. All were in a stable condition, local media reported.

One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Emsley, said she had momentarily lost hold of her one-year-old daughter, Sofia, in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother.

The father, James Emsley, also survived, Cocina said.

The captain of a nearby boat told Reuters that when the storm hit, he turned the engine on to keep control of the vessel and avoid a collision with the Bayesian.

"We managed to keep the ship in position, and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone," Karsten Borner told journalists.

He said that his crew then found some of the survivors on a life raft, including three who were seriously injured, and took them on board before the coast guard picked them up.

'The ship behind us was gone,' says captain who rescued yacht passengers

Mother saves 1-year-old daughter.

The Bayesian was built by Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008.

The luxury ship has an aluminum hull and can carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist yacht sites.

It was owned by a firm called Revtom Limited, according to the shipspotting.com website. Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, is named as the sole shareholder of the firm on company documents.

'It was a big disaster,' boater says of storm that capsized luxury yacht

Cocina of the civil protection agency said Bacares was among those rescued, but it wasn't immediately clear if she required hospital treatment.

Lynch, 59, is one of Britain's best-known tech entrepreneurs. He built the country's largest software firm, Autonomy, from his groundbreaking research at Cambridge University. His PhD thesis and the software that made his fortune was based on one of the mathematical theories of English statistician Thomas Bayes, after whom the yacht was named.

Lynch sold the firm to HP in a multibillion-dollar deal in 2011, before the transaction unravelled spectacularly following the acquisition, with the U.S. tech giant accusing him of fraud.

Lynch spent much of the last decade in court defending his name. He was acquitted by a jury in San Francisco in June after he spent more than a year living effectively under house arrest.

In a grim coincidence, one of his co-defendants in the U.S. fraud trial, Autonomy's former vice-president of finance Stephen Chamberlain, was hit by a car while out running in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning, two days before the Bayesian capsized. He was placed on life support and died Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke with Reuters.

Divers find wreckage

The coast guard said divers were inspecting the wreck of the Bayesian, which was lying at a depth of 49 metres.

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation to look into what had gone wrong.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat, which had lifted the temperature of the Mediterranean sea to record levels, raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts said.

"The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 C, which is almost three degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms," said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.

"We can't say that this is all due to global warming, but we can say that it has an amplifying effect."

The boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on Aug. 14 and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of "at anchor," according to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder.

A U.K. Foreign Ministry spokesperson said British officials were in contact with local authorities over the capsizing and were ready to provide consular support for Britons who were affected.

Corrections

• A previous version of this story identified the Canadian Antiguan killed in the sinking as Thomas Recaldo. In fact, his name is Recaldo Thomas. Aug 21, 2024 9:12 AM ET

With files from CBC's Megan Williams and The Associated Press

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Superyacht sinks latest: Investigators reveal where bodies were found as probe looks at 'crew's responsibility'

Italian officials revealed at a news conference there could be "a question of manslaughter" as they opened a shipwreck investigation and said the probe is also looking at the "crew's responsibility".

Saturday 24 August 2024 15:17, UK

• Superyacht sinking

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• Prosecutor: There 'could be a question of manslaughter'
• Probe 'concentrating' on crew's responsibility
• Seven bodies recovered after five-day search of superyacht wreckage off Sicily
• Saturday's papers pay tribute to youngest victim Hannah Lynch
• Hannah's sister pays tribute to 'my little angel'
• Explained: Inside the superyacht | What challenges have faced divers?
• Eyewitness: Sombre scenes greet rescue teams as final body is brought ashore
• Live reporting by Niamh Lynch

Prosecutors announced in this morning's news conference that they have opened a manslaughter and negligent shipwreck investigation.

Officials were unable to answer several queries from the media, saying they needed time to establish the facts, but what are the key questions facing prosecutors? 

Why weren't passengers who remained on board the vessel warned about escaping from the yacht?

The prosecutor in charge of the case, Raffaele Cammarano, suggested that some passengers may have been asleep when others were awake.

Asked why they were not woken up or alerted, he said that is something investigators are trying to work out from the statements of the survivors.

He called it an "essential" part of the inquiry.

Why were several of the passengers in one cabin?

The press conference heard several bodies onboard the sunken yacht were found in a single cabin which was not theirs.

Mr Cammarano said investigators currently do not know the reason for them being discovered in the same cabin.

The chief of the Palermo fire service, Bentivoglio Fiandra, said the yacht pinned to the right and suggested people tried to go on the other side, taking refuge in cabins in the higher part of the wreck.

Why did the boat sink?

The vessel had been deemed "unsinkable" by its manufacturer - Italian shipyard Perini Navi.

The Bayesian was hit by a downburst, according to Mr Cammarano, which are powerful winds that descend from a thunderstorm and spread out quickly once they hit the ground.

Officials will look into the safety equipment on the sunken vessel.

Mr Cammarano was asked about whether there is a black box and if the hatches were left open.

He said investigators do not have exact information about the black box and that the first phase of the inquiry will look into it.

Why were nearby vessels not similarly affected?

Another yacht, the Sir Robert BP, was about 150 to 200 metres from the Bayesian when extreme weather hit.

Its crew helped to rescue 15 people from the stricken vessel.

Italian officials said they would be looking at how the downburst could affect one vehicle and not other nearby vessels.

What weather warnings was the Bayesian alerted to?

Maritime director of western Sicily, Rear Admiral Raffaele Macauda, said the weather at the time of the yacht's sinking was abnormal and there was nothing to suggest such an extreme situation would arise.

He said there were forecasts of winds and a storm alert, but there was no warning of a tornado.

"Given that the conditions were such, there wasn't anything to suggest there could be an extreme situation arising," he said.

"There are vessels that can monitor, after all, these events and one would have thought that the captain had taken precautions."

How long will it take to recover the sailing vessel?

Mr Macauda could not confirm how long it would take to retrieve the shipwreck of the sunken yacht.

"Everything depends on the availability of the owners and the timeframe of the retrieval of the wreck and of course all that has to be submitted to the port authorities and in parallel of course there will be the inquiry results and it's only really then that we will be able to authorise the operation," he said.

"I can't say, like some experts who have already spoken on the subject, [said] that it will be eight weeks."

He made clear that the owners will bear the full cost of retrieval, although he could not estimate the figure.

Italian authorities detailed the challenging and meticulous rescue operation to recover the six missing people from the Bayesian wreck (see 9.18am post).

But why was the five-day search so difficult? 

Read more below...

More on this morning's press conference. 

One of the main updates from prosecutors was that they have opened manslaughter and shipwreck investigations after the deaths of seven people in the Bayesian sinking. 

Watch the announcement below...

Prosecutors have given a lengthy news conference this morning on their investigation into the sinking of the Bayesian. 

Read the full report on the prosecutors' probe below...

Marine investigator James Wilkes has been speaking to Sky News after this morning's press conference.

"Naturally, there are more questions than there are substantive answers at the moment - that's the nature of investigative work.

"Something forced that yacht to roll beyond its nominal stability limits, such that it wasn't able to right itself with the ingress of a certain amount of seawater that was coming into the yacht. 

"So the investigators are going to ask themselves one initial question - what must the conditions have been for this to happen? 

"Then they are going to look at the contributing factors to the yacht, sinking, and, and the unfortunate loss of life." 

Prosecutors said this morning that the future of the investigation is reliant on recovering the wreck. 

Mr Wilkes said the yacht is a "major piece of physical evidence in and of itself." 

"It's lying at 50 metres, which is a recoverable depth. 

"If it was significantly deeper, then I'm not sure they'd be considering salvage at this stage or certainly, the salvage question would be a lot more complicated to answer. 

"But if there was the ability to raise that yacht in one piece safely, then it gives the investigators physically more to look at."

Mr Wilkes said he was unsure if the yacht would have a "black box" - called a voyage data recorder in shipping. 

"It would record things like GPS position, heading speed, engine telemetry, whether the radars were on, what they were recording, alarms, communications from the yacht itself, any audio on the bridge.

"But more often than not, these are on merchant ships. The yacht was a commercial yacht in the sense that it could be chartered out so it's quite possible it has a voyage data recorder on, but I'm not sure that it does. I don't know that as a matter of fact," he said.

For days we have been waiting to hear from those on the frontline of this rescue mission.

And today finally, we did. Speaking for an hour and a half to the surprise of local journalists who couldn't believe what they were hearing alongside the world's press.

First-hand accounts of the gruelling, distressing and meticulous work that led to the discovery of the bodies of those missing on board the Bayesian.

Mr Cartosio said he had felt the need to conduct a press conference given the international interest in the event.

Flanking the head public prosecutor were representatives from the fire and rescue service and the members of the coastguard.

Some 11 highly specialised divers spent a total of 4,470 minutes underwater searching the vessels across five days.

By the end, there was little visibility in the water but they persevered and by lunchtime on Friday they had recovered the final missing person.

The discoveries of the bodies of all those onboard was difficult for divers despite their years of experience.

The foyer of the courthouse in Termini Imerese - a town just outside the Sicilian capital and some 10 miles from the scene of the tragedy - was packed. 

Some 100 journalists on white plastic chairs scribbling away as details about the mission and the subsequent investigation were revealed for the first time. 

The world's media heard the scope of the investigation was broad and that the aim of it was to find who is responsible.

Charges relating to shipwreck and manslaughter are being considered but nothing is being ruled out. 

The six bodies that were recovered in the five-day rescue operation were found in the cabins on the left-hand side of the ship, prosecutors reveal. 

They were trying to hide there after the ship sunk and landed on its right-hand side (see 9.24am post).

Watch below...

Prosecutors have confirmed that the captain of the Bayesian will undergo more questioning.

The yacht's captain James Cutfield has already been questioned for more than two hours by Italian prosecutors.

Prosecutors added that Mr Cutfield had been "extremely cooperative". 

They also indicated that British and American authorities are involved in the investigation.

"Well the inquiry is Italian... [but] yes, things are underway from the foreign judicial authorities."

The passengers who died were probably asleep, prosecutors said, and this is the reason they failed to escape. 

Officials suggested that "they were asleep whereas the others weren't".

We heard earlier that it was "clear people were trying to hide in cabins on the left hand side" as the ship landed on its right-hand side after it sank (see 9.24am post).

The first five bodies were found in the first cabin on left hand side and the final body was found in the third cabin.

The prosecutors' press conference is ongoing. 

Maritime director of western Sicily Rear Admiral Raffaele Macauda said that there is "no information so far that the yacht was wrongly placed" when it sank.

There was a "slight deviation of anchorage because of a piece of archaeology nearby", prosecutors added.

Questions on the weather at the time of the sinking have also been raised by journalists in the press conference.

The yacht had been hit by a downburst, according to Raffaele Cammarano, the prosecutor of this specific case.

He told the press conference "from the information we have, it is a downburst we are talking about".

Downbursts are powerful winds that descend from a thunderstorm and spread out quickly once they hit the ground.

He also added more details about the weather at the time of the sinking.

"Apart from extreme events which are being verified by the prosecutor, there was a great deal of visibility," the official said.

"And as you can see from the internet there was forecasts from midnight to 4am, winds of a strength of five from the north-west and the west and a storm alert.

"But there wasn't an alert of a tornado."

He added: "Given that the conditions were such, there wasn't anything to suggest there could be an extreme situation arising.

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Search Resumes for British Mogul and 5 Others After Yacht Sinks Off Sicily

The body of the vessel’s cook was recovered while divers searched the hull of the Bayesian for passengers, including the tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch.

• Share full article

By Elisabetta Povoledo

Deep-sea divers with Italy’s firefighter corps resumed their search on Tuesday for six missing passengers — including a British software mogul and his daughter — of a yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily the previous day.

Twenty-two people were on board the 180-foot British-flagged sailing yacht, the Bayesian, which was anchored near the port of Porticello, when it was hit by what witnesses described as a waterspout, a small tornado on water, during a sudden and violent storm.

Fifteen people who managed to get to a raft were rescued by the captain of a nearby sailing cruise ship. The body of the yacht’s cook, identified by news outlets as Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan, was recovered on Monday. But several people are still unaccounted for, according to Salvatore Cocina, an official with Sicily’s civil protection agency.

Those still missing are Mike Lynch, a British technology entrepreneur; his daughter Hannah; Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Christopher J. Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.

Mr. Lynch was acquitted of fraud in a U.S. trial in June, ending a high-profile, decadelong legal battle against accusations that he had defrauded Hewlett-Packard when he sold his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett for $11 billion.

Mr. Lynch and the others went missing days after Mr. Lynch’s co-defendant at the fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, a former vice president of finance at Autonomy, was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out for a run, his lawyer, Gary S. Lincenberg, said in a statement.

Prosecutors in the Italian city of Termini Imerese, east of where the yacht sank, are opening a formal investigation into the yacht’s sinking. Reached by telephone, the chief prosecutor declined to comment.

The search for the missing passengers began on Monday but was suspended late that night as crews found themselves limited to the bridge deck and items like furnishings “obstructing passage,” the firefighters’ corps wrote on social media .

When divers resumed the search on Tuesday, ships trawled the waters near the site, the corps said in a statement. The Italian Coast Guard also said in a statement that search operations were “continuing unabated,” with the deployment of helicopters. There was no evidence that gasoline was leaking from the yacht, the Coast Guard said.

The yacht was lying on its right side in about 165 feet of water, meaning that divers, working in pairs, could stay underwater for only about 12 minutes at a time, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for the firefighters’ corps.

Divers were seeking a safe point of access to the vessel’s cabins. “Obviously, everything fell and the space is very tight,” Mr. Cari said, adding that the divers were having to remove obstacles, like furnishings and electrical wiring, that were “completely blocking passages.”

The firefighters’ corps said in a statement that it was impossible to verify whether people were inside the hull.

Mr. Cari said that several divers had been part of the search-and-rescue operations when the Costa Concordia, a cruise liner, capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio in 2012, killing 32 people. It is considered one of the worst maritime disasters in modern Italian history.

“It’s like the Costa Concordia, but much smaller,” Mr. Cari said in a telephone interview, comparing the search operations. “In the Costa Concordia, we came across many obstacles but we somehow were able to overcome them. Here, the obstacles block the passages and have to be removed.” He added, “This makes it more difficult.”

Crews were also trying to raise the yacht, which experts will examine to try to determine why it sank. Until then, experts can only hypothesize what happened.

Karsten Borner, the captain of a ship, the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which picked up the Bayesian’s 15 survivors, said in an interview that when the wind picked up around 4 a.m. Monday, the Bayesian was about 490 feet behind his vessel. Once the wind wound down, he said, he could not see the yacht anymore.

“My theory was that she was capsized first and then went down over the stern,” Mr. Borner said.

Dario Boote, a ship structures and naval architecture professor at the University of Genoa, said: “Now I imagine that a whole series of lawsuits will be triggered, obviously to ascertain whether there is any responsibility, as always happens very unpleasantly in these situations.” He said, however, that in this case, responsibility might be hard to determine. “Clearly, only once the wreck is raised will we know more,” he added.

Several fishermen told Italian news outlets that they had witnessed a waterspout. Peter Inness, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, said they were relatively common in the Mediterranean, though their occurrence and intensity are unpredictable.

“Until one actually forms, you can’t start telling people where it is,” Mr. Inness said, or “how to get out of the way.”

The inclement weather — with lightning intermittently streaking through the sky — made it hard to know exactly why the yacht sank. Col. Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said the agency had registered intense lightning activity and strong gusts of wind in the area at the time the boat sank.

The Bayesian had one of the tallest aluminum masts in the world, according to its builder, Perini Navi. “Having a tall aluminum mast would not make it the safest port to be in case of a storm,” said Andrea Ratti, associate professor of nautical design and architecture technology the Politecnico di Milano. The type of intensity unleashed by a violent lightning storm “could have created a significant shock wave,” he added.

He, too, cautioned that “a lot of questions will remain until we have other elements at our disposal.”

Modern yachts are built to withstand meteorological events of reasonable intensity, and all international naval registers suggest that new ships be designed for higher waves and more frequent and extreme weather events.

But “this seems a case of an unreasonable extreme event,” said Emilio Fortunato Campana, an expert in Naval Hydrodynamics at Italy’s National Research Council. “In that case, no ship is 100 percent safe,” he added. “I think the Titanic showed that nothing is unsinkable.”

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

Five bodies found inside superyacht that sank off Sicily

PORTICELLO, Sicily — Divers recovered four bodies Wednesday from inside a superyacht that sank in a sudden storm off Sicily , Salvatore Cocina, director of the island's Civil Protection Agency, confirmed to NBC News.

Cocina later confirmed to Sky News that a fifth body had been found and was being brought to shore. One passenger remains missing.

The identities of the bodies were not immediately released. Their recovery follows a dayslong search in the deep waters off Italy where British tech tycoon Mike Lynch  and several others were believed to be trapped in the hull. Fifteen of the 22 people aboard survived.

The rest had been missing since early Monday, when the Bayesian was caught in the storm anchored off the coast of Porticello, a village near the Sicilian capital city, Palermo.

The body of the ship’s cook, identified as Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan national, was recovered Monday. 

On Wednesday, NBC News witnessed what appeared to be at least three body bags being lifted from fire department boats after they pulled into port at Porticello. It was unclear whose bodies they were. Some were later transferred to ambulances and driven away from the dock.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah; Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda, are also missing. 

The Bayesian is owned by a firm linked to Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who was among the survivors rescued by a nearby vessel after they got into a lifeboat.

Built by the Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi in 2008, the U.K.-registered yacht could carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist boating sites. Its nearly 250-foot mast is the tallest aluminum sailing mast in the world, according to CharterWorld Luxury Yacht Charters.  

Regularly described in U.K. media as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” Lynch was  acquitted of fraud by a San Francisco jury this year, stemming from the sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011.

The Mediterranean sailing vacation was designed to be a celebration for Lynch, who brought Bloomer, who testified in his defense, and Morvillo, one of his U.S. lawyers, on the trip.

Lynch's co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain was not aboard the Bayesian, but in what appears to be a tragic coincidence, a  car struck and killed  him Saturday as he was jogging in a village about 68 miles north of London, local police said.

Claudio Lavanga and Claudia Rizzo reported from Porticello. Henry Austin reported from London.

Claudio Lavanga is Rome-based foreign correspondent for NBC News.

Claudia Rizzo is an Italy based journalist.

Henry Austin is a senior editor for NBC News Digital based in London.

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch missing after superyacht sinks in storm off coast of Sicily

Topic: Maritime Accidents and Incidents

Video released by Italian authorities show the stretch of sea near Palermo, Sicily, where the superyacht Bayesian sank.   ( AP: via Vigili del Fuoco )

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, his lawyer and four other people are missing after a superyacht carrying 22 people sank off the coast of Sicily, authorities say. 

Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch's wife, have been rescued after the boat was hit by a violent storm at sunrise, according to the Italian Coast Guard. 

What's next?

Divers had located the wreck 50 metres underwater and search operations are continuing. 

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, his lawyer and four other people are missing after a superyacht carrying 22 people capsized and sank off the coast of Sicily due to bad weather.

Mr Lynch's wife and 14 other people were rescued, including a one-year-old girl, and one person has died.

A person familiar with the rescue operation confirmed to Reuters that Mr Lynch's 18-year-old daughter Hannah has not been accounted for.

The British-flagged, 56-metre Bayesian had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, representing British, American and Canadian nationalities, the Italian Coast Guard said.

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch is reportedly among those missing. ( Reuters: Henry Nicholls )

Managers of the sailing yacht Bayesian, Camper & Nicholsons, confirmed to the ABC that the Bayesian encountered severe weather and subsequently sank near the Sicilian capital Palermo, Italy, at 4:30am Monday, local time. 

"Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew," they said. 

Fifteen people were rescued and taken to shore at Porticello, where eight were receiving treatment in hospital and remain in a stable condition, the Italian Coast Guard said.

One body has been recovered and police divers were trying to reach the hull of the ship, which was resting at a depth of 50 meters where it had been anchored.

British Bill Gates missing

Mr Lynch is often dubbed by UK media as "the British Bill Gates" and the BBC confirmed the luxury yacht was tied to his wife, Angela Bacares.

According to maritime data service Equasis, the owner of the the Bayesian is listed as Revtom Ltd, the BBC reported.

Additionally, the yacht's name would resonate with Mr Lynch because his PhD thesis and the software that made his fortune was based on Bayesian theory.

Mr Lynch was acquitted in June by a jury in San Francisco of fraud charges linked to the sale of his software company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard for $US11 billion ($16.4 billion) in 2011.

He said at the time that he was "elated" to be cleared in the criminal trial in which he denied any wrongdoing, and blamed HP for botching the integration of the two companies.

In a separate incident, Mr Lynch's co-defendant in the trial, Stephen Chamberlain, died on Monday after a road accident left him critically injured.

Mr Chamberlain — Autonomy's former vice-president of finance alongside Mr Lynch — had been placed on life support after being hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning.

Rescued baby held above waves 

The coast guard said that rescue efforts had located the wreck at a depth of 50 metres underwater. 

The Italian fire and rescue service agency said search operations at sea were continuing with the coordination of the Italian Coast Guard, in a translated post on the social media platform X. 

One of the survivors, identified only as Charlotte, said she had momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

A spokesperson for the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said they were providing support to British nationals.

"We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Sicily, and are in contact with the local authorities"

Captain of nearby boat helped rescue passengers

The captain of a nearby boat that helped to rescue passengers from the Bayesian said that when the storm hit he turned his engine on to keep control of the vessel and avoid a collision with the Bayesian.

"We managed to keep the ship in position and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone," Karsten Borner told Reuters.

He said that his crew then found 15 survivors on a life raft, including three who were seriously injured and took them on board before the coast guard picked them up.

"There were 15 people inside," he said.

"Then we communicated with the Coast Guard and after some time, the Coast Guard came and later picked up injured people, and 2 hours later they picked up the other people."

Mr Borner said "a little baby and the wife of the owner" were among the survivors, while the owner of the sunken ship and another child were among those missing.

He described the conditions as "very strong" and said that his vessel was "heeling" but the Bayesian "went flat on the water and then down".

"There was a light and we saw that the ship was aside and then we saw a triangle," he said.

"So I think she went back down."

Storms and heavy rainfall swept Italy in recent days

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation to look into what had gone wrong.

The Bayesian, seen the night before it sank, has the tallest aluminium mast in the world. ( Reuters: Baia Santa Nicolicchia/Fabio La Bianca )

"The wind was very strong," a coast guard official in Palermo told Reuters.

"Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude."

After weeks of scorching heat, storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days — with floods and landslides causing major damage in the north of the country. 

Local media said a fierce storm, including water spouts, had battered the area overnight but skies were clear and seas calm by Monday morning.

The ANSA news agency said the yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, had been moored off the port at Porticello.

The yacht had won a string of awards for its design and can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites and a crew of 10, according to online specialist yacht sites.

The Bayesian was known for its single 75-meter mast, one of the world’s tallest made of aluminium and which was lit up at night, just hours before it sank.

Tech tycoon, Morgan Stanley exec missing after superyacht sinks off Sicily

• Tycoon Mike Lynch is missing after a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily, reports said.
• One person died, and six others, including Morgan Stanley International Chair Jonathan Bloomer, are missing.
• Lynch, the founder of Autonomy, was recently cleared of multibillion-dollar fraud charges in the US.

Mike Lynch, a controversial British tech tycoon recently acquitted of fraud in the US, is missing after a superyacht he was on sank off the coast of Sicily, according to reports.

The 56-meter superyacht named "Bayesian" sank early Monday close to Porticello, Palermo, during bad weather.

The area was hit by a strong storm and tornado about an hour before the boat sank, according to a statement by the City Council of Bagheria cited by CNBC News.

Of the 12 guests and 10 crew who were on board, one person is dead, and six others — including Lynch — are missing, The Associated Press said .

Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, is also among the missing, The Times reported, citing Italian officials. Bloomer is a longtime friend of Lynch and testified on his behalf during Lynch's US fraud trial earlier this year.

Lynch's daughter Hannah, believed to be 18 years old, is also among those missing in the wreck, the BBC reported , citing the director general of Sicily's civil protection agency, Salvatore Cocina.

Lynch's attorney, Christopher Morvillo, and Morvillo's wife are also among the missing, a colleague of Morvillo's told Business Insider.

Gary Lincenberg, an attorney who represented Lynch's codefendant, Stephen Chamberlain, in the high-profile fraud case in which both men were acquitted, said Morvillo and his wife "are presumed to be passed away" after the yacht went down near Sicily.

Lincenberg said he found out the news about Morvillo shortly after he learned that Chamberlain was killed after being struck by a car while jogging on Saturday.

"In the course of 48 hours, I can't process what has happened, but both of our clients, as well as Chris and his wife, are gone," Lincenberg told Business Insider.

Related stories

Authorities haven't confirmed whether the missing people have died.

The remaining 15 people on board, including Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, have been rescued, the BBC reported .

Another passenger who was rescued, Charlotte Emsley, described how she kept her 1-year-old child alive by holding her head above the water.

"I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning," she told reporters at la Repubblica, an Italian news outlet, according to a translation by the BBC.

"It was all dark. In the water, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I screamed for help, but all I could hear around me was the screams of others," Emsley told the outlet.

Divers saw "corpses through the portholes" of the wreck during rescue efforts, said Salvo Cocina, the head of the Civil Protection of Sicily, Sky News reported .

Divers found a man's body at a depth of 50 meters. Local media suggested it belonged to the vessel's chef. Business Insider could not verify the claims.

The superyacht is registered in the Isle of Man.

According to Reuters, the captain of a nearby boat and the owner of the Bayesian are also among those missing.

A local fire department told CNBC News that "divers, a motorboat, and a helicopter," were helping with the search.

But Italian officials are baffled that they haven't found the missing passengers by now.

"We've been searching all day with helicopters and boats, we've found nothing. That wouldn't make sense, in this conditions we should have found something by now," Francesco Venuto, a spokesperson for Sicily's civil protection agency, told Sky News , adding that they "must be there [in the boat]."

Lynch, the founder of the British software company Autonomy, was acquitted of multibillion-dollar fraud charges by a San Francisco jury in June.

He was first extradited to the US last year over accusations that he artificially inflated the value of Autonomy to defraud Hewlett Packard, which purchased the company in 2011 for $11 billion.

In November 2012, HP announced an $8.8 billion writedown related to the Autonomy acquisition, saying $5 billion of that was based on "accounting irregularities" that led HP to massively overpay for Autonomy.

Lynch, a former UK government advisor, always maintained his innocence. His lawyers called the charges a "travesty of justice" that "had no place in a US court."

Bloomer, who is also among the missing, led Autonomy's audit committee and provided critical testimony on Lynch's behalf during the trial, telling the court that Lynch was not heavily involved in the company's accounting.

In an interview following his acquittal, published late last month, Lynch told The Times that he was excited for his shot at a second life after fearing he would die in prison if he was convicted.

"I'd had to say goodbye to everything and everyone, because I didn't know if I'd ever be coming back," Lynch told the outlet. "If this had gone the wrong way, it would have been the end of life as I have known it in any sense."

Lynch also told the Times his acquittal had made him more spiritual, leading him to begin considering what he called "Saint Peter questions."

"So you arrive at the Pearly Gates before being dispatched to the elevator down to the basement, and you say to Saint Peter, 'You know, just before I go, what was that all about? What was that?'" Lynch told the outlet.

The tech tycoon, who faced more than 20 years in prison if convicted, had been preparing to set up a campaign to help wrongly accused Britons in the US, according to The Telegraph .

Representatives for Mike Lynch did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

August 19, 2024 — Update: This story has been updated to include reporting that Morgan Stanley International Chair Jonathan Bloomer is among the missing.

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