Diver dies working on wreck of sunken super yacht Bayesian - days after recovery work began
The 39-year-old, who has not been named, was pronounced dead this afternoon, but it was not immediately clear if he was a local or a contractor with the recovery team.
A coastguard spokesman confirmed the incident but had no other immediate details to share following the incident which happened off the coast of Porticello near Palermo on the Italian island of Sicily.
Sources said the diver who died was Dutch and worked for SMIT, the operators of the heavy lifting crane that has been brought in along with another support ship to lift the yacht.
The investigation was focusing on two theories, that he either had a seizure of some kind or his oxygen equipment was faulty.
It was not immediately clear if the accident would impact on the lifting operation which is set to take place next weekend.
Marine salvage experts begAn a £20million operation to recover the wreck on May 5.
The vessel sank in a freak storm off the fishing village of Porticello, Sicily, last August, killing seven - including billionaire tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18.
The salvage mission, which will see the wreckage lifted 164ft from the seabed, is being carried out by two crane ships, Hebo Lift 2 and Hebo Lift 10.
Hebo Lift 2's underwater technology will be combined with Hebo Lift 10, said to be one of the most powerful maritime structures in Europe, with the aim of raising Bayesian by mid-May.
Lifting the £30million, 543-ton vessel is key to an investigation launched by Italian authorities, who want to know why the yacht – which makers The Italian Sea Group claim was unsinkable – sank in just 16 minutes.
Last August, Mr Lynch, the yacht's owner and founder of Cambridge-based software firm Autonomy, invited a group of friends and family to the yacht to celebrate being cleared by a US jury of fraud charges that could have seen him jailed for 20 years.
In addition to Mr Lynch and his daughter Hannah, Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and wife Judy, attorney Chris Morvillo and wife Neda, and ship's cook Recaldo Thomas died in the shipwreck.
With the help of nearby vessels, 15 of the 22 total people on board were rescued in the initial phase - with one body recovered and six others reported missing.
The bodies of the six missing people were later found following search efforts which continued until August 23 last year.
In the days after the tragedy, the CEO of the Italian Sea Group lay the blame at crew members on the yacht.
Giovanni Costantino said: 'This was human error, the yacht sank because it took on water.
'From where exactly the investigators will tell us. The dynamic of the sinking is seen and read from AIS (Automatic Identification System) data and lasted sixteen minutes.
'We have given this data to the prosecutors at Termini Immerse. From the images it looks as if the yacht had been taking on water for four minutes.
'All it took was another gust of wind to turn her over, that meant more water coming in. She then straightened very briefly before going down.'
Mr Constantino told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera there were a long list of errors; the stern hatch was 'clearly' open; the ship's keel should have been lowered; people shouldn't have been in their cabins' and the crew should have known about the storm.
He said the tragedy was avoidable and added: 'Ask yourself - why were no fishermen from Porticello out that night? A fisherman reads the weather conditions and a ship doesn't?
'The storm was in all the weather charts. It couldn't have been ignored.'
Nick Barke, head of salvage operations at Boats.co.uk, previously told MailOnline that the 'only real way of knowing' why the yacht sank would be to lift it to the surface.
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The Independent
11 hours ago
- The Independent
What caused the Bayesian to sink? How tragedy that killed seven people unfolded in just 16 minutes
A year has passed since a British superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily in 16 minutes, killing seven people including tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah. The 56-metre (184ft) Bayesian sank off the coast of the Italian island on 19 August, 2024. The boat's manufacturers, Italian prosecutors, British marine investigators and survivors have all made different claims about why the boat sank so suddenly. The boat's captain and two crew members are currently under investigation for manslaughter. The Independent looks at everything we know about the incident and how the boat may have sank. What do we know about the incident? The Bayesian sank off the coast of the Sicilian capital of Palermo in Italy in the early hours of 19 August last year, after it was hit by unexpected extreme weather. It took just 16 minutes to sink. There were 22 people on board and seven were killed, including Mr Lynch and his teenage daughter Hannah. A coastguard official in Palermo said at the time that bad weather had been expected but not of the magnitude witnessed. Winds of up to 90mph were recorded on the day. Subsequent investigations have identified that the boat was hit by a mesocyclone, which is a type of powerful rotating thunderstorm that can produce tornadoes or extreme wind bursts. Inquest proceedings in the UK are looking at the deaths of Mr Lynch and his daughter, as well as Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy Bloomer, 71, who were all British nationals. Why did the Bayesian sink? Sicilian prosecutors opened an inquiry into suspected manslaughter and have placed the captain James Cutfield, from New Zealand, and two British crew members, Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, under investigation. Experts have claimed that hatches and doors were left open overnight by the crew, causing the boat to sink. An interim report released by Italian coastguards sought to blame Mr Cutfield and the crew for the sinking. A spokesperson for the family of Recaldo Thomas, a cook on the yacht who also died, accused the crew of making 'questionable decisions' when the wife of Mr Lynch, Angela Bacares, was up on the deck. But in a statement released ahead of the first anniversary of the disaster, Ms Bacares said she had always felt 'reassured' by the crew during bad weather. An interim report by the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) also found that the vessel's design, particularly its raised centreboard and high mast, could also be responsible for the tragedy. The MAIB report suggested the structure may have compromised the boat's stability in 'motoring mode,' vulnerabilities that were not included in the yacht 's stability manual. The report challenged claims made by yacht builder The Italian Sea Group, which found that the Bayesian would capsize at a 70.6-degree heel, contrary to the builder's assertion it could recover from 73 degrees. While TISG said 80-knot winds would tilt the yacht only 28 degrees, investigators found that winds exceeding 63 knots were enough to knock it over. Giovanni Costantino, the Chief of TISG, has described the yacht as 'unsinkable' and claimed the crew must have left doors or hatches open, allowing water in. How investigators rescued the boat The Bayesian was recovered as part of a multimillion pound rescue operation which saw about 70 specialist personnel mobilised to Porticello from across Europe. The recovery mission concluded after the 56-metre (184ft) hull and 72-metre (236ft) mast, as well as deck furniture and other loose items, had been delivered to Italian authorities in Termini Imerese in Palermo, Sicily. The hull was recovered on 21 June and transported around 12 miles to Termini Imerese the next day by one of the most powerful floating sea cranes in Europe. On 23 June it was then lifted into heavy steel supports on the quayside, which had tarpaulin underneath to prevent pollution. The cradle was custom-designed to fit the shape of the hull and built in the Netherlands. The mast had been detached from the hull for the recovery and was on the seabed. It was salvaged using inflatable lifting balloons and delivered to port on 25 June, along with the loose items that may have moved away from the vessel during past 10 months. Remote-controlled submersible equipment was used to locate the debris in the vicinity of the Bayesian site. The vessel was originally expected to be raised in May but efforts were stifled first by difficult weather conditions and later by the death of a Dutch diver helping with the rescue mission. The Bayesian's insurer, British Marine, tasked the London-based marine consultancy group TMC Marine with raising the yacht. Investigators in the UK and Italy said raising the vessel was crucial to fully understanding what happened.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
Mike Lynch's words from beyond the grave: A year on from yacht tragedy, how he fell in love at first sight with the wife who's fighting for his legacy while grieving her husband and daughter
Mike Lynch thought a very great deal of his wife Angela. He'd fallen in love with her after she arrived late for their first business meeting, which she proceeded to dominate. Later, when his freedom and their shared fortune hung in the balance, he'd been enamoured by her fortitude and optimism. 'Angela has an attitude that, while I am fighting a dragon, she does not want me to feel I have to look around at her,' the British tech billionaire told me. 'She is strong. She comes from a very poor background. I think that means you're more resilient in having to deal with stuff so, ironically, she is probably better equipped to cope than some.'
Times
2 days ago
- Times
Mike Lynch's widow ‘felt safe' on yacht minutes before it sank
The widow of the British IT tycoon Mike Lynch has told investigators that she had total faith in the Bayesian superyacht and its crew in the minutes before it sank in a storm off Sicily last August. Angela Bacares said she was confident after ten years of sailing on the yacht which had ridden out a violent storm in Naples days earlier. 'I felt safe on the boat,' she said, adding that she was 'reassured by the crew'. The sinking in the early hours of August 19 claimed the lives of her 18-year-old daughter and her husband, who had organised a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate his victory in a US fraud trial. Five others also drowned and 15 survived, including all but one of the crew members, as the $40 million yacht rolled over in high wind and sank while anchored off Porticello near Palermo. Magistrates have placed crew members, including the captain, James Cutfield, under investigation. In her first account of those moments to magistrates, made last year and now released by the TV programme Quarta Repubblica, Bacares, 58, said she was woken up by movement at 4am as the storm gained strength, and went up on deck, but said she was calm. 'In these ten years I had been afraid of hitting rocks or getting trapped by the anchor of another boat, but I had never thought something catastrophic could occur. I had never felt it necessary to wake up others because of rough weather.' said Bacares, whose company owned the Bayesian. 'The boat was rocking but not enough to move things in the room. I was not worried, I was curious about what was happening,' she said. As the boat tipped over on its side and water entered, the captain reassured her it would turn no further because it was already at 90 degrees. 'I believed my husband and my daughter would have been able to swim up. I was convinced the boat would not turn over,' she said. Seconds later she was swimming in open sea as the yacht vanished from sight. Magistrates are now set to decide whether to bring crew members to trial. An interim report by the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch has criticised the design of the vessel, including its unusually tall mast.
