Mike Lynch, daughter among six missing after yacht sinks off Sicily

PALERMO — Divers scoured the wreck of a luxury yacht off Sicily’s coast today to find six missing people, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and a Morgan Stanley executive, following an intense storm that sank the vessel on Monday.

The British-flagged Bayesian, an 184-foot-long (56-meter-long) superyacht, was carrying 22 people and anchored off the port of Porticello when it was hit by the fierce, pre-dawn storm.

Fifteen people escaped before it capsized and the body of one person who died was swiftly recovered. That left six passengers unaccounted for – Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Morgan Stanley International (MS.N), opens new tab non-executive chairman Jonathan Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, and their two wives.

“The fear is that the bodies got trapped inside the vessel,” which was lying 49 metres (160 feet) deep, Salvatore Cocina, head of civil protection in Sicily, told Reuters. This meant time beneath the waves was a limiting factor for the divers.