Body of British Tech Entrepreneur Lynch Retrieved

The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of his family yacht that sank this week off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, a senior Italian official said.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah is still unaccounted for interior ministry official Massimo Mariani after being briefed by the emergency services. Reports said.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long (184-foot) superyacht carrying 22 passengers and crew, was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it disappeared beneath the waves in minutes after bad weather struck early Monday.

Lynch, 59, was one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and had invited friends to join him on the yacht to celebrate his acquittal in June in a U.S. fraud trial.

Seven people are believed to have died in the disaster while 15 survived, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who is the owner of the Bayesian.

Italian officials confirmed they had retrieved on Wednesday the bodies of Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International, and Christopher Morvillo of the law firm Clifford Chance, alongside their wives, Judy Bloomer and Neda Morvillo.

The body of the onboard chef, Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, was recovered near the wreck on Monday.

Mariani said it was possible that Hannah Lynch’s body was not in the boat but might have been swept out to sea.

Fire brigade spokesperson Luca Cari said if her body was still in the yacht it could take time to find, given the difficulty divers were having in accessing all areas of the boat, which is lying on its side at a depth of 50 metres (165 feet).

A judicial investigation has been opened into the disaster, which has baffled naval marine experts, who say a boat like the Bayesian, built by Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, should have withstood the storm.

Reuters/Shakirat Sadiq