ROME — Rescue teams and divers were searching Tuesday for six missing people, including a British tech magnate and a Morgan Stanley boss, after a luxury superyacht sank in a storm off Sicily.
The identity of those still missing emerged after an initial search of the 184-foot sailboat, named the Bayesian, was unsuccessful on Monday. The British-flagged tourist vessel had 22 people aboard when it sank due to “a violent storm” off Sicily’s main city, Palermo, at around 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. ET) on Monday, the local coast guard said.
Fifteen people were rescued by a boat present in the immediate vicinity and then brought ashore by coast guard vessels, but six passengers, including American, British and Canadian citizens, remained missing, it said. They were believed to be trapped in the boat’s hull, some 164 feet underwater.
Salvatore Cocina, the director of Sicily’s Civil Protection Agency, told NBC News early Tuesday that the missing include British tech magnate Mike Lynch and his daughter, Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife as well as Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife.
Cocina did not specify the nationalities of the missing. He also did not identify Lynch’s daughter or the wives of Bloomer and Morvillo.
Italy’s national fire department said Tuesday that its divers were able to get inside the wreck during a late-night dive on Monday, inspecting some cabins located under the bridge, but were having trouble navigating due to obstructions and narrow access gates.
Rescuers said that there might be bodies inside the cabins but that they had so far been unable check through the ship’s portholes.
Surface searches continued in the area of the shipwreck, it added, including with a helicopter and a fire brigade boat.
The coast guard said in a statement Monday that the ship’s cook had died. It did not give his nationality. Reuters identified him as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.
A Clifford Chance representative said they could neither comment on or confirm the news that Morvillo was missing. He is a lawyer for Clifford Chance based in New York, according to the company’s website.
