British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and five others who are believed to be trapped inside the sunken Bayesian yacht, could still be clinging to life in “air pockets” in the hull, according to one experts.
While Italian authorities have said the passengers’ chances of survival is slim, Vincenzo Zagarola of the Italian coast guard said they are holding out hope. “Never say never,” the official said.
Nick Sloane, an engineer who worked on the Costa Concordia salvage operation a decade ago, told Sky News that search teams had “a very small window of time to try to find people stuck inside with hopefully an air pocket.”
“You’ve got a maximum of two to three days to try to get someone out, so the next 24 hours are critical,” he said.
“If the yacht is on its side, it might have more air pockets than if it’s upright. She’s got quite a large keel, and that will deflect and put her on her side, I’m sure.”
The Italian coast guard has deployed divers to the wreckage to search for survivors some 160 feet of water. The depth means they can only stay underwater for 12 minutes at a time.
Authorities believe some of the missing passengers may have been trapped inside their cabins when the yacht sank, BBC reported.
The 184-foot luxury superyacht, which is registered to Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, capsized with 22 people aboard off the port of Porticello, Sicily after it was suddenly struck by a freak storm around sunrise Monday morning, officials said.
What to know after a tornado sank the yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily, leaving one dead and six missing:
- A superyacht capsized off the coast of Sicily after a tornado hit the area early Monday, killing one passenger and leaving five others missing — including Michael Lynch, a tech tycoon known as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” officials said.
- Lynch had invited guests from the legal firm that represented him, Clifford Chance, and Invoke Capital, his own company, on the voyage, according to the Telegraph.
- Captain James Catfield, who piloted the 184-foot, British-flagged craft, was among the 15 crew members and passengers to survive after the tornado struck Monday before sunrise.
- Security camera footage shot from 650 feet from where the Bayesian sank Monday shows it slowly disappearing.
- Italian authorities have said the chances of the passengers surviving the disaster was very small, but “never say never.”
“We didn’t see it coming,” Captain James Catfield, who piloted the massive sailboat, told Italian newspaper La Repubblica from the hospital, where he was limping due to an injury.
One person, the ship’s Canadian-born chef Thomas Recaldo, was confirmed dead after Italian authorities recovered his body.
Lynch, a 59-year-old billionaire known as the “British Bill Gates,” and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah are believed trapped in the wreckage.
Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife, Judy, as well as top New York City lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife, Nina, are also among those still unaccounted for.
Fifteen others onboard, including Bacares and a mother who saved her 1-year-old daughter, managed to escape the superyacht before it went down.
The boat was carrying a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers when it sank, officials said.
The yacht left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on Aug. 14 and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening before the storm hit, according to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder.
