The body of a fifth missing person has been recovered from the wreckage of a luxury yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily as the hunt for the remaining passenger continues.
The body is that of British tech magnate Mike Lynch, a source close to the rescue operation said. Mr Lynch’s 18-year daughter Hannah is still missing, the source said.
The bodies of the other four people who vanished when the Bayesian went down were recovered from the yacht on Wednesday.
A fire service boat with flashing blue lights returned with a blue body bag to the port of Porticello just after 8.45am local time on Thursday.
Six people, including Mr Lynch, were unaccounted for after the vessel sank at around 5am on Monday. Mr Lynch is of Irish heritage – his father was a fireman from Co Cork, and his mother was a nurse from Co Tipperary.
Identities of the recovered bodies have not been confirmed by authorities, despite local and international media reporting some had been identified.
Body bags were seen being taken to the port of Porticello on Wednesday afternoon.
Among those also named as missing were Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.
The body of Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as a chef on the superyacht, was recovered at the scene of the sinking on Monday.
Of the 22 passengers and crew on board, 15 – including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares – were rescued after escaping on to a lifeboat.
The captain of a yacht, the Sir Robert BP, who helped to rescue them, described how those aboard his vessel spotted the distress flare set off from a life raft.
Karsten Borner said his crew noticed the Bayesian had disappeared before a passenger spotted the flare. He told Sky News: “We couldn’t see them any more and they disappeared from the radar, we were busy keeping our own ship sailing. We couldn’t see the ship again so we were aware something was very wrong.”
He said it was only when the tender set out that they found the life raft. Mr Borner continued: “It turned out to be the life raft, a 12-person life raft with 15 people inside including one baby.”
The ship’s captain, James Cutfield, was reportedly questioned by authorities for two hours as they began questioning all crew members.
Fire crews from the Vigili del Fuoco, Italy’s fire and rescue service, said divers have been accessing the vessel through natural entrances, without making openings. Remotely controlled underwater vehicles are being used, with naval units and cave divers also taking part in the search, the Italian coastguard said.
Bayesian was moored around half a mile off the coast of Porticello when it sank at about 5am local time on Monday as the area was hit by a storm.
The wreckage of the Bayesian is resting on the seabed off the coast at a depth of 50m (164ft). Fire crews described the operation as “complex”, with divers limited to 12-minute underwater shifts.
The boat trip was a celebration of Mr Lynch’s acquittal in a fraud case in the United States. The businessman, who founded software giant Autonomy in 1996, was cleared in June of carrying out a massive fraud relating to its sale to US company Hewlett Packard.
In a separate incident, Mr Lynch’s co-defendant in his US fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, died after being hit by a car while out running in Cambridgeshire in the UK on Saturday. – PA