Diver dies throughout operation to recuperate superyacht that sank off Sicily, killing tycoon and 6 others

Work to lift a superyacht that sank in Sicily final 12 months, killing a U.Ok. tech mogul and 6 others, was suspended Saturday after the loss of life of a specialised diver, based on native information reviews.

The diver was a part of a staff working to lift the 185-foot “Bayesian” yacht that was struck by a pre-dawn storm in August final 12 months whereas anchored off Porticello, close to Palermo.

The yacht sunk inside minutes after being struck by one thing akin to a mini-tornado, killing British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, his teenage daughter and 5 others — Morgan Stanley Worldwide financial institution chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his spouse, Judy, U.S. lawyer Chris Morvillo, his spouse Neda Morvillo and the yacht’s chef Recaldo Thomas, the BBC reported. Fifteen folks managed to flee on a lifeboat, together with a one-year-old baby and Lynch’s spouse, Angela Bacares.

Authorities suspended work on elevating the vessel after prosecutors opened an investigation Friday into the loss of life of a 39-year-old diver, based on Italian media.

In accordance with preliminary reviews, the diver was a part of a staff working to chop and take away the 75-meter mast, a primary step earlier than restoration of the yacht itself, which is mendacity on its facet on the seabed some 50 meters down.

TMC Marine, the British firm working to lift the superyacht, didn’t instantly reply to an AFP request for extra info.

In an announcement Friday cited by information reviews, TMC Marine mentioned it was cooperating with the probe and that “the circumstances of the accident are at the moment being investigated by the authorities.”

Work to deliver up the yacht started final week, with Italy’s coastguard saying it will take as much as 25 days.

Inquests into the deaths of the 4 British victims of the yacht sinking are at the moment being held in Ipswich, in japanese England.

In Italy, prosecutors in Termini Imerese have opened investigations into the captain and three others on suspicion of manslaughter and the crime of negligent shipwreck.  

Lynch, the 59-year-old founding father of software program agency Autonomy, had invited family and friends onto the boat to have fun his latest acquittal in an enormous U.S. fraud case.

Who was Mike Lynch?

Lynch, as soon as hailed as “Britain’s Invoice Gates,” rose to prominence within the late Nineteen Nineties with the event of his software program firm, Autonomy, which helped companies shortly discover info buried in e mail and different digital paperwork. In 2011, Lynch bought the enterprise to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion, giving him a $800 million payday and cementing him as one of many U.Ok.’s richest folks. 

However the acquisition was later referred to as one of many “most infamous failed mergers and acquisitions” after HP found alleged accounting points, resulting in Lynch’s firing by HP’s then-CEO, Meg Whitman. HP claimed that Autonomy had used accounting improprieties to bolster its underlying financials forward of the acquisition, prices that Lynch steadfastly denied. 

The case stretched right into a 12-year authorized struggle that resulted in June 2024 when a federal courtroom jury in San Francisco delivered not-guilty verdicts.

Lynch, who earned a PhD in mathematical computing from the U.Ok.’s Cambridge College, first cofounded an organization referred to as Cambridge Neurodynamics, based mostly on the cofounders’ work with sample recognition. The agency used the tech to match fingerprints and automotive license plates, based on a 1997 article in The Guardian.

From there, Lynch cofounded Autonomy in 1996, which relied on a statistical mannequin referred to as Bayesian inference, named after a theorem developed by the 18th century statistician Thomas Bayes. (Lynch’s luxurious yacht was christened the “Bayesian.”)

The corporate tapped into the rising want of companies to type by means of and discover info throughout the huge reams of information created by the rising use of computer systems and digital paperwork.

Autonomy’s regular development throughout its first decade resulted in Lynch being awarded one of many U.Ok’s highest honors, the Workplace of the Most Glorious Order of the British Empire in 2006.

Lynch advised The Guardian in 1997 that individuals did not fairly consider {that a} rising tech enterprise might emerge from the U.Ok. 

“I’ve truly heard the remark, ‘England, software program? I assumed you made bone china,'” he advised the newspaper. 

contributed to this report.