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 on Monday. The British-flagged tourist vessel had 22 people aboard when it sank due to “a violent storm” off Sicily’s main city, Palermo, at around 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. ET) on Monday, the local coast guard said.
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.
Salvatore Cocina, the director of Sicily’s Civil Protection Agency, told NBC News early Tuesday that the missing include British tech magnate Mike Lynch and his daughter, Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife as well as 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.
Italy’s national fire department said Tuesday that its divers were able to get inside the wreck during a late-night dive on Monday, inspecting some cabins located under the bridge, but were having trouble navigating due to obstructions and narrow access gates.
Rescuers said that there might be bodies inside the cabins but that they had so far been unable check through the ship’s portholes.
Surface searches continued in the area of the shipwreck, it added, including with a helicopter and a fire brigade boat.
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.
A Clifford Chance representative said they could neither comment on or confirm the news that Morvillo was missing. He is a lawyer for Clifford Chance based in New York, according to the company’s website.
A State Department spokesperson told NBC News they were aware of reports that U.S. citizens were on the Bayesian, but had no more details to share.
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.
One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Emsley, 35, told the Italian news agency ANSA that she had momentarily lost hold of her 1-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.
