A few hundred meters from the port of Porticello, near Palermo, the 50-meter yacht capsized. It is still unclear why, but according to local media, the ship must have been at anchor when sudden, strong storm winds caused it to capsize.
There were 22 people on board. 15 of them, including a one-year-old child, were rescued from the luxury yacht. Remains of five people have been recovered from the wreckage.
The 59-year-old tech billionaire, entrepreneur and boat owner Mike Lynch is confirmed dead on Thursday, Ansa reports. His body has been found at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. His 18-year-old daughter is still missing.
“Very important person in the IT industry”
The incident has attracted a lot of attention, not least in the UK where Lynch is well known. He has been described by some as the country’s answer to Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
– He may not be quite at those levels, to be completely honest, but for the UK a very, very important person in the IT industry, says James Savage, editor-in-chief at The Local.
Mike Lynch founded the company Autonomy, which helped other companies interpret their data. In 2011, he sold it to the American computer giant HP, which was the start of a real scandal and lengthy litigation. (Hear more in the video above.)
Investment bank Morgan Stanley’s international chairman, Jonathan Bloomer, and Chris Morvillo, a prominent American lawyer who defended Lynch, are also believed to have perished in the boat accident. The head of the Sicilian civil protection authority has, according to CNNtold reporters at the scene that their wives are also among the missing.
Mike Lynch was recently rewritten in the British media after being acquitted of fraud charges. Hear James Savage, editor-in-chief of The Local, talk about the British tech billionaire in the clip above.