Superyacht Wreck: Morgan Stanley International Chair Jonathan Bloomer Among Missing

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Bernama-UPI) -- Italian authorities were continuing a major search and recue operation Tuesday following the sinking of British tech-billionaire Mike Lynch's super-yacht off Sicily to find six missing guests, including Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and wife, Judy Bloomer.

Lynch, 59, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and Clifford Chance partner Chris Morvillo, also remain unaccounted for as the rescue mission entered its second day, according to United Press International (UPI).

The 184-foot Bayesian sailboat sank with 22 people on board after being hit by what is being described as a waterspout during a storm in the early hours of Monday.

The Sicilian Civil Protection Department said Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares; Charlotte Golunski, her husband James and their 1-year-old daughter, Sophie, Ayla Ronald, a New Zealand lawyer at Clifford Chance and her partner were among 15 people who escaped on the Bayesian's lifeboat and were later rescued.

Eight of the survivors were taken to hospital.

One body has been recovered, a male -- thought to the vessel's chef, it reported.

The rescue operation is being coordinated by the coastguard involving four patrol boats, a search helicopter and coastguard and navy divers. The Palermo Fire Department said its dive team had also joined the mission.

The fire department's first dive, using specialist cave divers to the wreck lying on the seabed 164 feet beneath the Mediterranean on Monday night, failed to find anything.

"The first inspection of the cave divers inside the wreck was unsuccessful. Limited access to the bridge, with difficulties due to the presence of furniture that obstructs the passageways," UPI reported the department wrote in a post on X.

A spokesman for Morgan Stanley said the group was waiting for news from what it called a "terrible situation."

"Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular the Bloomer family, as we all wait for further news from this terrible situation."

The Telegraph reported that the group was on the Bayesian for a "victory" trip celebrating Lynch clearing his name after a 13-year legal battle that saw him extradited to the United States last year to stand trial on fraud charges related to the US$11 billon sale of his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett Packard.

He was accused of inflating the value of the software company he founded but in June a jury in a federal court in San Francisco acquitted him and co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain of all 15 counts of fraud.

-- BERNAMA-UPI