Super-yacht tragedy: Who is still missing and who has been rescued? What is known so far
20 August 2024, 13:28 | Updated: 20 August 2024, 13:36
Mike Lynch and his daughter are among six missing after their super-yacht sank off the coast of Sicily, while his colleague was killed in a car crash - here's what we know so far about the bizarre tragedy.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Mr Lynch is a computing tycoon who was celebrating on the Bayesian yacht in the Mediterranean after being found not guilty in a long-running US fraud trial.
Some 22 people were onboard at the time of the sinking, with 15 people rescued - including Mr Lynch's wife, as well as mother and her one-year-old daughter.
Six people remain missing, including Mr Lynch and his daughter, and one has died.
Here's what we know about the tragedy so far.
Who is Mike Lynch?
Mike Lynch, 59, is the founder of Autonomy, a British computing company whose business is described as 'knowledge management and enterprise search'.
Founded in the 1990s, the company sold its products to big businesses such as Unilever and Barclays, and bought a series smaller companies - until it was bought itself by computing giant Hewlett Packard in 2011.
That deal valued the company at about $10 billion.
Lynch himself is said to have made about $800 million (£600 million) from the sale, and today he is worth around £500 million.
He had been embroiled in legal troubles related to the sale for much of the previous ten years, and was found not guilty of fraud by a US court in June.
What happened on the yacht?
Mr Lynch was celebrating being found not guilty with 11 family members, friends, lawyers on the Bayesian yacht, a 56-metre vessel off the coast of Palermo, the capital of the Italian island of Sicily. There were also ten crew members.
The yacht was about 300 metres off the coast.
It capsized at around 4.30am on Monday, August 19, according to ship tracking data.
Local media reported that waterspouts - a rare form of tornado - were seen in the area.
The waterspouts likely toppled the ship's 248-foot mast, which was unusually tall.
Who is still missing?
Mr Lynch is among two British people and four Americans who are missing from the yacht. One has yet to be named.
The others are:
- Hannah Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter who recently finished her A-levels and was preparing to study English at Oxford.
- Chris Morvillo, an American lawyer with Clifford Chance who represented Mr Lynch in the US.
- Jonathan Bloomer, a banker with Morgan Stanley who is a friend of Mr Lynch and appeared as a witness at the US trial.
- Judy Bloomer, Mr Bloomer's wife, who is a trustee at gynaecological cancer research charity the Eve Appeal
Divers continue to search for the missing people.
The ship's chef has died, according to local authorities.
Who survived?
Some 15 people have been rescued, including nine crew members.
Among the others are Angela Bacares, who escaped onto a lifeboat.
One of the survivors, British woman Charlotte Emsley who works at Mr Lynch's company Invoke Capital and previously was at Autonomy the business at the centre of his legal battle.
Ms Emsley told la Repubblica she held her one-year-old daughter, Sofia, to stop her from drowning.
She said: "I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning."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."
Charlotte and Sofia were treated in hospital, as was Sofia's father, James Emsley.
“I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning. 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."
What happened to Mr Lynch's co-defendant Steve Chamberlain?
Mr Lynch's co-defendant in the US fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, died after being hit by a car while out running in Cambridgeshire on Saturday.
Mr Chamberlain was the former vice-president of finance at Autonomy. Like Mr Lynch, he had been acquitted in the trial.
Gary Lincenberg, Mr Chamberlain's lawyer, said in a statement: "Our dear client and friend Steve Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out running
"He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity. We deeply miss him.
"Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family."
Mr Chamberlain died in hospital after the crash. The driver stopped at the scene.
What were Mike Lynch's legal troubles?
After Hewlett Packard bought Autonomy in 2011, the company said that it had discovered issues with the accounting at the company and declared a multi-million-pound write-down.
Hewlett Packard sued Mr Lynch in the UK and in the US. The British court found in favour of the US tech giant in a civil case in 2022, and the judge is still considering the award of damages.
Separately, Mr Lynch was extradited to the US in 2023 after a legal battle, and held under house arrest in San Francisco to face fraud charges. The court found him not guilty in June.
