Four Bodies Found In Yacht Wreck Amid Search For Mike Lynch

Italian rescue divers have found four bodies inside the sunken luxury yacht, amid the search for six missing people including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch.

Dr Mike Lynch and five others are officially classified as missing, after a yacht owned by the Lynch family capsized and sank in the early hours of Monday 19 August, off the coast of Sicily during a freak storm.

One of the two bodies found in the hull is said to be a “heavily built man, and those two bodies have been taken ashore at Porticello for formal identification. Another two bodies were found by divers later.

Bodies found

The identities of the four people found Wednesday afternoon have not yet been officially confirmed at the time of writing.

Mike Lynch had been hosting an event for staff aboard the yacht Bayesian. The yacht was named after Lynch’s research in Bayesian probability theory, which was the basis of his work in technology.

Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares and 14 other people, including a 1-year-old girl, were rescued aboard a life raft.

The British-flagged Bayesian was carrying 12 passengers and 10 members of crew when it got into difficulty at around 4.30am on Monday, the Italian coastguard said.

Eyewitnesses said the yacht heeled, or tipped onto its side, in the extreme weather until it began taking on water.

The Bayesian “went flat on the water, and then down”, Karsten Borner, the captain of a nearby vessel, told journalists.

The Italian fire rescue service believe the six people unaccounted for are inside the hull.

Rescue divers can only search the wreck for 10 minutes at a time, and the rescue inside the wreck is reportedly being hampered by furniture and other debris.

On Tuesday the body of chef Recaldo Thomas had been found near the wreck during the search operation.

The missing individuals are Dr Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah Lynch, non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley International Jonathan Bloomer, his wife, Judy Bloomer, Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance who represented Lynch and his wife, Neda Morvillo.

A team of four British inspectors from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) reportedly arrived in Italy, according to the PA news agency reported.

But the Italian Coastguard reportedly said the MAIB are not involved in the search for the missing people and that it did not request assistance.

Fraud acquittal

Lynch, known as the Bill Gates or Steve Jobs of Britain, has spent much of the past decade defending his name.

In June a jury in San Francisco cleared him of all fraud charges he had faced over the $11bn (£8.6bn) sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

Lynch had faced one count of conspiracy and 14 counts of wire fraud in the trial for allegedly trying to inflate the company’s revenues beginning in 2009, partly in order to lure a buyer.

The trial had lasted 11 weeks, and saw Lynch take the stand to testify in his own defence.

The jury acquitted Lynch on all 15 felony counts facing him, that could have resulted in a 20 year prison sentence if found guilty.

Co-defendant death

In a strange twist of fate, Stephen Chamberlain, the former vice president of finance of Autonomy who was co-defendent in a US fraud trial alongside Mike Lynch, died this week after being struck by a car in Cambridgeshire.

Chamberlain was killed after being hit by a vehicle while out running on Saturday.

The driver of the vehicle, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, remained at the scene and is assisting officers with their inquiries.

The incident occurred about 48 hours before Lynch and five others went missing off the coast of Sicily when his yacht sank after being struck by a freak waterspout, or seaborne tornado.