Tech Tycoon Mike Lynch Among Missing After Luxury Superyacht Sinks Off Coast Of Sicily In ‘Violent Storm’

August 19, 2024 James Meyers Angele Bacares, Associated Press, autonomy, Bayesian sailboat, Bill Gates, British tech tycoon, fraud charges, Hewlett-Packard, HP, Italian coast guard, Italy’s Fire Department, James Meyers, luxury superyacht, Mike Lynch, Milazzo, OAN Newsroom, Palermo, Perinin, Porticello, Rescue, Salvo Cocina, San Francisco, Shipwreck, Sicily, tech, TECHNOLOGY, tornado, U.K., US, Vesselfinder 0


This photograph shows a Coast Guard boat with Italian fireboats and an Italian fire brigade helicopter search for six missing passengers after recovering a victim due to a sailboat sank off the coast of Porticello, nosthwestern of Sicily Island, on August 19, 2024. One person was killed and rescuers were searching for six others missing after a luxury superyacht called
This photograph shows a Coast Guard boat with Italian fireboats and an Italian fire brigade helicopter search for six missing passengers after recovering a victim due to a sailboat sank off the coast of Porticello, nosthwestern of Sicily Island, on August 19, 2024. One person was killed and rescuers were searching for six others missing after a luxury superyacht called “The Bayesian” with 22 people aboard majority of those were British, sank during a sudden storm off the coast of Italy’s Sicily, officials said, on August 19, 2024. (Photo by ALESSANDRO FUCARINI/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN Staff James Meyers
10:55 AM – Monday, August 19, 2024

A British tech tycoon is among six people missing after a luxury superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday. 

Mike Lynch, who is described in the U.K. as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” was onboard the 160-foot Bayesian sailboat with 22 others when it was hit by a tornado off the port of Porticello, according to a source who is close with the situation. 

Lynch, was among six people who were unaccounted for, Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he added. His wife Angele Bacares was rescued out of the waters off the Italian island. 

At least one passenger was killed, while six others, including two Americans are still missing, the Italian coast guard said. 

Meanwhile, fifteen people, including a one-year-old child, were rescued from the wreck.

He added that they had “watched the ship behind us not to touch them and we managed to keep the ship in position.” After the storm was over he said “we noticed that the ship behind us was gone.”

“Fifteen people inside. Four people were injured, three heavily injured and we brought them to our ship, he said. “Then we communicated with the coast guard and after some time, the coast guard came and later picked up injured people.”

Lynch was acquitted only two months ago by a San Francisco jury of fraud charges linked to the sale of his software company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11 billion in 2011. 

The massive sale had validated Lynch’s reputation as Britain’s answer to Microsoft, but it fell apart after HP wrote down Autonomy’s value by $8.8 billion. 

Italy’s Fire Department said in a statement that “divers, a motorboat and a helicopter” had been deployed to help with the search. The wreck was at a depth of around 165 feet, the statement said. 

Built by Italian shipbuilder Perinin in 2008, the U.K. registered Bayesian has an aluminum hull and can carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10 people. Multiple sites list the luxury vessel to cost $215,000 to charter per week. 

The fancy vessel left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on August 14th and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of “at anchor,” according to the vessel tracking app Vesselfinder. 

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