Divers searching for six people missing after the superyacht Bayesian sank off Sicily on Monday have recovered five bodies, according to reports.
RTÉ quotes AFP as stating this was confirmed by a source close to the search.
The 56 metre-long yacht had 22 people on board – 12 passengers and ten crew – when it sank around 4.30 am local time off Palermo on Monday.
To date, only one body has been recovered, that of chef Recaldo Thomas, who was Canadian-~Antiguan.
No further details have been released formally. Six people among a total of 22 on board were reported missing on Monday after the yacht was hit by a waterspout while moored off Porticello on the northern Sicily coast.
The six were named as British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, whose parents were from Cork and Tipperary; his 18-year-old daughter Hannah; his lawyer Chris Morvillo, who represented him during a recent trial; and his wife Neda Morvillo, along with Morgan Stanley International Bank chair Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy Bloomer.
Divers and specialist rescue and recovery staff have been searching inside the hull of the sunken yacht at a depth of 50 metres and lying at a 90 degree angle since Monday/
The missing people were believed to be in cabins when the vessel sank. Among the survivors were 29-year-old Irish citizen Sasha Murray and 36-year-old Charlotte Golunski, a partner at Lynch’s company Invoke Capital, who described saving her baby daughter from drowning.
Angela Bacares, wife of Mike Lynch and one of the survivors, told doctors in hospital that the boat began to tilt at 4am, according to La Repubblica newspaper.
She is reported to have said that both she and her husband woke up, and she climbed up on deck to assess the situation but the vessel then started to capsize. There are reports a flare was set off shortly before the sinking.
Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has sent four investigators to the scene.
The MAIB will be responsible for leading the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sinking, given that it was a British-flagged vessel.
