1 dead, 6 missing after luxury superyacht sinks off Sicily in storm

At least one man was killed and six people were missing Monday after a luxury superyacht sank near the Sicily’s main city of Palermo during a violent storm, Italian officials said. 

The 184-foot sailboat with 22 people on board “suddenly sank” at around 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. ET) “probably due to the terrible weather conditions,” the City Council of Bagheria said in a statement. 

A strong storm and a tornado hit the area and the coast around an hour earlier, it added. Fifteen people were rescued, including a 1-year-old baby, the council said.

American, British and Canadian citizens were among those missing, Italy’s coast guard said in a separate statement.

Karsten Borner, the captain of a ship that rescued the survivors, told reporters that there was a “strong hurricane gust and we had to start the engine to keep the ship in an angled position,” according to Reuters.

He added that they had “watched the ship behind us not to touch them and we managed to keep the ship in position.” After the storm was over he said “we noticed that the ship behind us was gone.”

“Fifteen people inside. Four people were injured, three heavily injured and we brought them to our ship, he said. “Then we communicated with the coast guard and after some time, the coast guard came and later picked up injured people.”

One of the survivors, identified only as Charlotte, told the Italian news agency ANSA that she had momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter, Sofia, in the water, but she managed to retrieve her and hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety.

“I immediately hugged her again amid the fury of the waves. I held her tight, close to me, while the sea was stormy,” the 35-year-old said. “Many were screaming. Luckily the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us managed to get on it.”

The City Council of Bagheria said a child of that age was being treated at a children’s hospital. It said that seven adults were taken to the emergency room but “it seems that none are in serious conditions.” 

Another seven people were at the Port Authority in nearby Porticello, it said. Six were missing, the statement said.

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch is among those missing, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC. The sources, who preferred not to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation, said it had been confirmed that Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, was rescued.

Lynch, 59, founded the enterprise software firm Autonomy and became the target of a protracted legal battle with Hewlett Packard after the U.S. tech giant accused him of inflating the company’s value in an $11 billion sale. Extradited from Britain to the U.S. last year to stand trial, he was acquitted of fraud following a three-month trial.

In a separate statement, Italy’s Fire Department said that “divers, a motorboat and a helicopter” had been deployed to help with the search. The wreck was at a depth of around 165 feet, the statement said.  

Divers from the Sicilian city of Sassri and Naples, a city on the Italian mainland, were “arriving on site to search inside the sunken vessel,” it added. 

Italy’s coast guard said the yacht was named the Bayesian, and was built by Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008, according to The Associated Press, which reported that the luxury vessel has an aluminum hull and can carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist yacht sites. Online sites list it for charter for up to 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week, the AP reported.

The boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on Aug. 14 and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of “at anchor,” according to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder.

Fabio La Bianca, 40, took a picture of the boat at around 10 p.m. local time Sunday night shortly after he closed his bar in nearby Santa Flavia. “Absurd tragedy tonight. I am lost for words,” the 40-year-old said in a Facebook post Monday.