The body of British tech mogul Mike Lynch was recovered from the debris of his $40 million yacht on Thursday, while rescuers continue to search for his teenage daughter, according to sources. Earlier Italian media reports said that Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah had been found earlier in the rescue effort off Italy’s coast.
However, the tech magnate was found on Thursday, three days after his luxury yacht sank during a violent storm off the coast of Italy, a source involved in the rescue operation told Reuters. His daughter now remains the only one of the six victims not found, the source said, the New York Post reported.
Hannah Lynch Still Missing
“We would need a crystal ball to know when we’ll be able to find the next body,” said Luca Cari, spokesperson for the fire rescue service.
“It’s very difficult to move inside the wreckage. Moving just one meter can take up to 24 hours,” Cari said, according to the New York Post.
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The body of Ricardo Thomas, the ship’s chef and the first confirmed fatality, was found shortly after the Bayesian went down.
The others identified among the recovered bodies include New York City attorney Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda, along with Morgan Stanley executive Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, according to The Guardian, which cited reports from Italian media and divers.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, and 14 others, including a 1-year-old child, were able to escape the ship before it capsized.
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Lynch had invited the group on his family’s yacht to celebrate his recent acquittal in a major U.S. fraud trial. Among his guests were lawyers from the firm that defended him, along with friends and supporters who stood by him during the legal ordeal.
Joyful Vacation Ends in Tragedy
The search for the sixth and final missing person continued on Thursday, with authorities committed to finding the missing teenager by day’s end. “We are still working on it,” Giuseppe Petrone, the national director of Italy’s firefighting department divers, told The Guardian. “We should be able to recover the sixth body today.”
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Divers have spent the last three days searching within the wreckage of the sunken yacht, but their task has been challenging due to the ship’s depth—approximately 160 feet underwater.
Given this depth, divers can only remain submerged for 12 minutes at a stretch.
It was revealed on Wednesday that the captain of the superyacht, New Zealander James Cutfield, was “questioned for more than two hours” by Italian prosecutors last night.
The “highly respected” seafarer was interrogated by the Termini Imerese Public Prosecutor’s Office as part of their investigation into the incident. It is expected that other passengers and crew members will also be interviewed as part of the inquiry.
Speaking to Italian journalists from the hospital the morning after the incident, Cutfield said, “We didn’t see it coming.”
The investigation will examine whether the crew had left hatches open, potentially causing the boat to sink within minutes.
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The yacht was carrying 10 crew members and 12 passengers when it was struck by tornado-strength winds during a violent thunderstorm at 5 a.m. on Monday, August 19.
The impact was so powerful that the vessel sank beneath the waves, vanishing completely in “just 60 seconds,” leaving those on board in a desperate race for survival.
While 15 people managed to reach safety, including a British mother who bravely kept her baby daughter afloat in the pitch-dark waters, seven people remained unaccounted for.
