Tech Titan Missing After Luxury Superyacht Hit by Tornado

British tech mogul Mike Lynch is one of six people missing after a majestic luxury superyacht was sunk by a tornado off the coast of Sicily early Monday, according to reports.

Two Americans and three other Brits also remain unaccounted for after the 184-foot sailing vessel Bayesian sank to the depths at around 5 a.m. approximately half a mile off the coast close to Palermo. Fifteen passengers and crew—including a 1-year-old girl—were rescued, according to local media reports, while the body of one man has been recovered.

Lynch, 59, disappeared in the incident but his wife has been rescued, a person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.

In June, a San Francisco jury found Lynch not guilty on 15 fraud charges brought over the sale of his Autonomy company to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011.

Once revered in the U.K. as Britain’s Bill Gates, Lynch thanked jurors at the end of his decade-long legal battle to clear his name. “I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” he said after his acquittal.

Bayesian was built by the Perini Navi shipyard in Italy in 2008 and refitted in 2020. The vessel boasted the tallest aluminum mast in the world, reaching over 240 feet, according to Boat International. The nautical news site reported that the iconic vessel was one of the 50 largest sailing yachts on Earth.

Divers reached the wreck of the British-flagged yacht over 160 feet below the surface. They found the body of a man alongside the vessel and more bodies were visible through the ship’s portholes, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. The man whose remains were recovered was the ship’s cook, La Repubblica reports.

The 1-year-old English girl who survived the disaster was taken to a hospital but was thankfully unscathed.

“I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning. It was all dark,” her mother, identified only as Charlotte, told La Repubblica. “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 required stitches to an injury on her chest, while her husband also reportedly suffered minor injuries.

The passengers on board the boat were mainly from the U.K., though others hailed from Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and Ireland, according to the ANSA news agency. Some witnesses told the agency the ship was anchored in front of the port of Porticello when the tornado hit.

“A beautiful boat where there had been a party. A normal holiday spent happily at sea turned into a tragedy,” one witness told ANSA.

The local BAIA Santa Nicolicchia restaurant shared on Facebook a picture purportedly showing the Bayesian at around 10 p.m. on Sunday night. The account also posted security camera footage from the early hours showing violent winds causing damage outside the restaurant.

Italy’s fire and rescue service separately shared footage of the recovery operation with helicopters and boats operating in the area of the sinking.

“I was at home when the tornado hit,” local fisherman Pietro Asciutto told Ansa. “I immediately closed all the windows. Then I saw the boat, it had only one mast, it was very large. I saw it sink suddenly.”