EXCLUSIVE Hope for survivors on capsized superyacht: Rescuers warn next 24 hours are ‘critical’ as expert says victims ‘could still be alive in pockets of air’ 164ft below surface – as divers try to enter cabins _ Hieuuk
Rescuers frantically searching for trapped survivors in a capsized superyacht off the coast of Sicily have warned that the next 24 hours are ‘critical’ if there is to be any hope of finding anyone alive.
Six people including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, as well as a Morgan Stanley boss, are missing after the £30million Bayesian sank amid a freak thunderstorm early on Monday morning.
Search teams say the boat is marooned 164ft below the surface on the seabed and is so deep that dive teams can only go down for 10 minutes at a time, with their efforts being hampered by furniture blocking the entrances.
One expert has claimed that the ship, which is almost completely intact despite not being ‘anchored in a safe place’ before it sank, could have trapped pockets of air inside that might allow survivors to stay alive after the ‘unprecedented’ disaster.
Nick Sloane, an engineer who led the salvage operation on the Costa Concordia, said ‘the next 24 hours are critical’ if any of the missing people are to be found alive, with a time limit of ‘two to three days’ before anyone who has found an air pocket runs out of oxygen.
There have been instances in the past of people surviving for days underwater in these circumstances, but rescue divers have warned that they are prepared to find bodies instead of living, breathing survivors.
One person is confirmed to have died after the £30million superyacht was struck by a terrifying waterspout at around 5am, with the ship’s captain emotionally claiming ‘we didn’t see it coming’ from his hospital bed.
It comes as:
Rescue workers look at the plans of the the Bayesian as they organise a search operation for six people who are still missing after the superyacht sank
A life raft is seen docked at the harbour near the port where the emergency and rescue workers are launching their search operation
The life raft helped save the lives of 15 people after it self-inflated as the Bayesian sank beneath the waves on Monday morning
Rescue personnel wearing scuba gear stand on a boat as they prepare to resume the search operation in the coast off Sicily
Emergency services including police and paramedics stand on the pier at Porticello as the search operation continues this morning
A handout photo made available on August 19 by Perini Navi Press Office shows the ‘Bayesian’ sailing boat, in Palermo, Sicily, Italy
Mike Lynch’s superyacht Bayesian (pictured) was anchored off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, Sicily, when a waterspout struck the area just before 5am on Monday, wrecking the boat and causing it to rapidly disappear beneath the waves
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch is still missing. His wife Angela Bacares (right) was among the 15 people who were rescued from the yacht
Engineering expert Nick Sloane, who led the salvage operation for the Costa Concordia, has claimed that there is a chance there may be survivors trapped in air pockets inside the wrecked ship
The luxury sailboat was anchored just a few hundred metres off the coast of Porticello on calm seas when it was suddenly struck by a violent waterspout just before 5am on Monday.
It is believed the ship sank after its mast – one of tallest in the world at an enormous 246ft-high – snapped during the brutal incident and keeled over, taking the hull beyond the ‘down-flooding angle’, according to nautical experts.
Engineer Nick Sloane, who led the salvage operation of the cruise ship Costa Concordia in 2012, told Sky News that despite this there may be a slim chance that there are survivors.
He said: ‘They’ve got a very small window of time to try to find people stuck inside with hopefully an air pocket, and they could be rescued.
‘You’ve got a maximum of two to three days to try to get someone out, so the next 24 hours are critical.
‘If the yacht is on its side, it might have more air pockets than if it’s upright. She’s got quite a large keel, and that will deflect and put her on her side, I’m sure.’
There is precedent for this to happen – in 2013 cook Harrison Odjegba Okene was remarkably rescued three days after his tugboat sank to the bottom of the Atlantic when he found safety in an air pocket.
Despite the sliver of hope, Italian Coastguard officials have said they believe the six people who are still missing have died and their bodies are inside the wreck.
Vincenzo Zagarola said: ‘We think they are still inside the boat, that is our very hard idea.
‘Our search and rescue activity by sea and air has gone on for around 36 hours. Of course, we do not exclude that they are not inside the boat, but we know the boat sank quickly.
‘We suppose that the six people missing may not have had time to get out of the boat.’
Asked about the likelihood of them being alive, he replied: ‘Never say never, but reasonably the answer should be not.’
Divers attempting to get inside the superyacht have found their progress impeded with furniture blocking the entrances and exits, and the depth meaning that they can only spend 10 minutes at the wreck before having to return to the surface.
Those in charge of the operation say the specialist divers are struggling to reach the cabins where survivors might be and are having to drill their way into the lounge.
Among those missing is Mr Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, a former pupil at Latymer Upper School in West London who received her A-Level results last week and was offered a place at Oxford. Today, a spokesman for the school said they were ‘incredibly shocked’ by the news of the sinking and shared their thoughts with ‘her family and everyone involved’.
Also believed to be in the wreck is Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, who represented Mr Lynch in a recent legal battle and his wife Neda, and Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy. Athena Lamnisos, CEO of Gynaecological cancer research charity Eve Appeal, where Ms Bloomer has been a trustee for more than 20 years, today hailed her a ‘brilliant champion for women’s health’.
Mr Lynch had invited family and friends onto the yacht to celebrate his ‘second life’ after being acquitted of all charges in a US fraud trial, and in an extraordinary twist his co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain – who was also cleared of the charges – has also died after being hit by a car while running in England over the weekend.
Those who could escape piled into the Survitech Zodiac liferaft, which self-inflated on hitting the water in an emergency. The French-made device comes packed in a compact cube the size of a large suitcase and is rated to hold 12 people.
However, in the chaos 15 people were forced to take shelter on the craft before they were rescued by a nearby yacht and taken to shore.
The injured who were rescued by the medics and taken to hospital are James Emsilie, 35 years old with his wife Sharlotte Golunski 35 years old and little Sophia, one year old. They are all English and are in the Children’s Hospital.
Chairman of Morgan Stanley International, Jonathan Bloomer (pictured left), and his wife are also yet to be found, as is Lynch’s attorney Christopher Morvillo (pictured right) and his wife
In a cruel twist in the yacht tragedy, it was revealed last night that Mr Lynch’s ex colleague and co-defendant in his US fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain (pictured), has died in hospital after being hit by a car on Saturday
Lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his jewellery designer wife Neda Morvillo are both missing in the wake of Monday’s superyacht sinking off the coast of Sicily
Dr Domenico Cipolla, director of the emergency department at Di Cristina Children’s Hospital, said Ms Golunski had told him more details about the sinking of the yacht.
He told RAI news: ‘The mother said while she was sleeping with her daughter, they found themselves in the water in just a few moments.
‘She held the little girl tightly. The light was gone. For a few seconds the little girl slipped from her hands and she held her with her arms in the air. Within seconds they reached the yacht’s life raft.’
He said the baby had ‘slept well’ last night.
Others who made it onto the raft include the wife of Mr Lynch, 57-year-old Angela Baccares, Sasha Murray, Myin Htun Kyaw, Ayla Ronald, Michael Griffith, Matthew Fletcher and the ship’s captain James Calfield.
Speaking from a hospital room in the town of Termini Imerese close to Palermo, Mr Calfied, in a state of grief and shock, could only utter one sentence.
‘We didn’t see it coming,’ he told La Repubblica.
Rescuers claimed that survivors spoke of the ship going down in ‘two minutes’ and that it appears that the yacht ‘wasn’t anchored in a safe place’ at the time of sinking.
Inspector Marco Tilotta, leading the Palermo Fire Brigade’s diving unit, has likened the grim search operation to the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster in 2012 which claimed the lives of 33 people.
Eerily, the specialist cave divers called in for the search and rescue operation found ‘virtually everything intact’ on board, with little sign of damage, and ‘no rips in the side, no signs of impact,’ he told MailOnline.
Rescuers said that from what they can see, there appears to be no bodies on the bridge of the yacht, and divers are now working to break into the lounge area.
The boat is resting on the seabed on its starboard (right hand) side, 164ft below the waves, and the first efforts of the dive teams were unsuccessful in moving furniture impeding their access to the cabins below, said Insp. Tilotta.
The rescuers still hope that survivors might be found, against all odds, in trapped air pockets, but Insp Tilotta admitted ‘it is a race against time and the quality of the oxygen will be bad’.
His choice of words however told the unpleasant truth: ‘We will do everything to recover the bodies. The weather conditions are worsening but we hope to continue operations without problems’.
As the first shift of divers returned from the site, storm clouds threatened overhead.
‘We have just finished the first dive, now we do a briefing and continue for the whole day,’ he added.
‘We checked the hull from the outside, visibility is good, now our objective is to penetrate inside the vessel’.
In the next few hours and days, the accident investigators will have to work out how it was possible that the vessel sank while others were hardly affected and how come it was still intact.
The whirlwind has been defined as ‘extremely intense, sudden and very localised’, the Inspector told Il Messaggero.
It is up to the group of cave divers from Rome and Sassari, who have specialist training and equipment, to enter the yacht to take stock of the situation. Some of them, the inspector says, also worked on the case of the Costa Concordia.
Luca Cari, head of emergency communications for Italy’s fire and rescue, told local news agency Ansa that the ships bridge – the room from which a captain navigates – was strewn with of electrical cables.
Describing the challenges faced by the divers, she said: ‘They can stay underwater for a maximum of 12 minutes, two of which are needed to go up and down. So the real time to be able to carry out the search is 10 minutes per dive.’
Some locals have claimed the vessel was ‘not anchored in a safe place’ when it sunk, Sicilian journalist Piero Messina told Sky News.
Meanwhile, climate expert have said warm weather and poor visibility played a role in the sinking, and claimed the crew should have paid more attention to weather warnings.
One rescuer has compared the incident to the Costa Concordia disaster which took place in Italian waters in 2012 (pictured)
A fire service helicopter stands close to the harbour in Porticello this morning as specialist divers from the emergency service take over search operations
Two men in a coastguard vessel head out of the harbour in Porticello this morning, more than 24 hours after the superyacht sank
A police vessel and coastguard ship seen in the waters off Sicily this morning as the search resumes for those missing after the sinking of the Bayesian
A fire service vessel and a smaller boat float in the water as divers continue their efforts to get into the wreck of the Bayesian today
Search divers head out to the scene of the wreck near Porticello this morning as the operation to find the bodies of those missing continue
An emergency and rescue service boat navigates on the sea near the site where a luxury yacht sank, off the coast of Porticello, near the Sicilian city of Palermo, Italy, August 19
Italian Coast Guard Command teams and firefighters are carrying out search and rescue operations with helicopters and ships to find the missing people after the Bayesian sank
The superyacht was docked off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, when a waterspout hit the area just before 5am Monday morning
A weather map shows how Mike’s Lynch’s superyacht was buffeted by winds of up to 150mph before it sank
One maritime expert has said that the sinking of the boat was ‘unprecedented’ and that a vessel the size of the Bayesian should not have been able to capsize in that weather.
Matthew Schanck, Chairperson for the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, said the tornado over water, known as a waterspout, that struck the 184ft yacht with 22 people on board should not have caused it to sink.
He told GB News: ‘It’s sort of unprecedented, really, to have a vessel of that size, being certified and commercially operated, to suffer such a significant event in weather that was pretty severe by all accounts, but should have been within the limits of the vessel itself.’
He also told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the sinking itself appears to have happened ‘very, very quickly’.
‘There isn’t really much the captain or the crew could do to prepare for these events given how rare they are,’ he said.
‘Reports that people who were in the life raft have had to enter the life raft from the water, and that indicates to me that this emergency has happened very, very quickly. People haven’t had time to enter the life raft from the vessel, they’ve had to enter from the water.
‘My understanding is that the flare has gone up from the life raft, according to the reports. We don’t know if the vessel had time to send out any electronic distress signals, to use its radio or any other equipment to alert the authorities, but the eyewitness accounts from the shore and the anchorage state they saw the red flare.
‘One of the captains from the anchorage said he saw the vessel there one minute and then the next minute the vessel was gone and all he saw was the red flare which indicates to me that this has been a catastrophic incident which has gone very quickly.’
One expert at the scene of the disaster who declined to be named said an early focus of the investigation into what happened would be whether the yacht’s crew had had time to close access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.
Former shipyard manager and maritime technical inspector Gino Ciriaci told Italian daily Corriere Della Sera said once the mast had fallen, the vessel was far more prone to pitching and rolling as it was battered by waves without the sails to steady it.
In the case of the Bayesian, he said the waterspout was so violent that the boat, dragged down by its broken mast, tilted until the edge of the deck slipped under the surface.
The entire ordeal likely lasted only a few minutes, with the ship sinking rapidly as it took on seawater.
Divers operate in the sea to search for the missing, including British entrepreneur Mike Lynch, after a luxury yacht sank off Sicily, Italy August 19
The Bayesian, which was previously known as the Salute, was a 56m long vessel built in Viareggio, Tuscany, by luxury shipmaker Perini Navi in 2008
Nautical maps show the last known location of the Bayesian just after 2am local time on Monday, when it was at anchor
Specialist divers had reached the ship yesterday afternoon but their search efforts were met with unexpected complications.
‘Access was limited to the bridge, due to the difficulty represented by the presence of furnishings obstructing the divers’ passage,’ the fire crews said in a statement.
The search operation was made yet more difficult because the ship was resting on the seabed at a depth of 50 metres, which limits the amount of time divers can be underwater, said fire rescue spokesperson Luca Cari.
In the meantime, survivors of the tragedy were taken to various hospitals on the island of Sicily and began recounting their terrifying ordeal.
Among the 15 rescued was one-year-old baby Sofia, who was kept afloat by her mother, 36-year-old Charlotte Golunski.
Ms Golunski, an Oxford graduate and senior associate at Mike Lynch’s company Invoke Capital, yesterday told of her fight to prevent her child from drowning.
‘For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again in the fury of the waves,’ Ms Golunski said.
‘I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched up to keep her from drowning,’ she added.
‘It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.’
The British-flagged Bayesian is thought to have arrived in Porticello after a stopping in Milazzo, around 100 miles up the coast towards the Italian mainland
Tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who was often referred to as the ‘British Bill Gates’, was on holiday with family when tragedy struck and ‘freak’ waterspout took down his luxury boat
Charlotte Golunski, 36, and her young daughter Sofia were two of 22 people aboard the superyacht when it was battered in a storm before sinking a few hundred metres from the port of Porticello on Monday morning
A survivor leaves the Coast Guard Headquarters after a sailboat sank in the early hours of Monday, off the coast of Ponticello, near the Sicilian city of Palermo, Italy, August 19
Italian Coast Guard Command teams and firefighters are carrying out search and rescue operations with helicopters and ships to find missing people after a yacht sank on Monday due to a storm east of Palermo in southern Italy on August 19
Golunski, who yesterday received treatment for a minor shoulder injury sustained in the evacuation, described the experience as ‘terrible’ and detailed how ‘in a few minutes the boat was hit by a very strong wind and sank shortly after… (We were) terrified by the thunder, the lightning, the waves that made our boat lurch.’
She added that her family had survived because they were on the deck when the ship began to sink, rather than trapped in the cabins below.
That is where the five missing passengers – Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, Morgan Stanley’s Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, one of Lynch’s US lawyers, Christopher Morvillo of legal firm Clifford Chance, and Morvillo’s wife – are believed to have drowned.
Lynch, 59, was once hailed as the UK’s king of technology and is frequently referred to as ‘Britain’s Bill Gates’.
He was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges in a US federal trial related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp.
The yacht trip appeared to be something of a celebration after Lynch’s acquittal, with guests including members of his legal team as well as friends, family and witnesses who stood by Lynch throughout the trial.
Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, 57, was among the 15 people who were rescued from the 180ft yacht.
The Bayesian’s hull and the superstructure, the part above the main deck, were made from aluminium
The enormous 246ft-high aluminium mast on Mike Lynch’s superyacht (pictured from above) could have been what caused the vessel to capsize and sink rapidly, according to an expert
Charlotte Golunski, 36, (pictured) her husband and her one-year-old baby also survived
Karsten Borner, the captain of a ship that rescued the 15 survivors of the Bayesian disaster, told the BBC: ‘After the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone’
She revealed that the first sign of the freak waterspout that sunk the luxury sailboat owned by her company Revtom Limited was a ‘slight tilt’ that woke her up.
Speaking to Italian media from a wheelchair last night, Bacares – who needed significant medical treatment for several injuries including lacerations on her feet, a cut eyebrow and bruising across her body – said she was not initially worried until she heard glass shattering.
She got up and left her cabin to see what was happening – a decision that almost certainly saved her life – but within seconds the ship was being battered by the waterspout.
‘Everything was falling, becoming slimy, soaked in the waves that were carrying you away. I managed to get back up, to get out of that cage, but without being able to help…’ she said.
The 15 people who escaped the Bayesian miraculously managed to inflate a life raft and were plucked from the sea by the Sir Robert BP, a Dutch sailing ship which had been anchored nearby and saw the tragedy unfold.
Karsten Borner, the captain of the rescue boat, described how his vessel was battered by strong gusts, with his team working to stabilise it and manoeuvre it to avoid hitting the Bayesian nearby.
Borner told the BBC: ‘After the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone.’
Fisherman Fabio Cefalù said he had seen a flare from shore at around 4.30am and immediately set out to the site but by the time he got there, the Bayesian had already sunk, with only cushions, wood and other items from the superyacht floating in the water.
‘But for the rest, we didn’t find anyone,’ he said from the port hours later, adding that he immediately alerted the coast guard and stayed on-site for three hours, but didn’t find any survivors.
‘I think they are inside, all the missing people,’ he said.
Mr Lynch had been celebrating after a court victory in the United States after being accused of fraud following the disastrous $11billion (£8.3billion) sale of his company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
In an extraordinary twist, the tragedy comes days after Stephen Chamberlain, an ex-colleague of Mr Lynch – who he had successfully fought a fraud case with – died after being hit by a car.
The legal battle endured more than a decade, and in March this year Lynch found himself in a San Francisco courtroom to defend himself against fraud and conspiracy charges.
The 59-year-old tycoon had spent much of the previous year living under house arrest with an electronic tag attached to his ankle.
Mr Lynch had potentially faced up to 20 years in a US prison if found guilty of 16 counts of conspiracy, and securities and wire fraud, which he denied.
In June he was cleared of all charges – a major victory for the tech guru.
Mr Chamberlain was fatally injured just days before billionaire tech tycoon Lynch went missing off the coast of Sicily when a superyacht was caught in a freak ‘whirlwind’.
Keen runner Mr Chamberlain, Autonomy’s vice president of finance alongside chief executive Lynch, was hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning and was placed on life support before passing away.
Chamberlain had faced the same charges of fraud and conspiracy as his former boss Lynch
In a tribute released through Cambridgeshire Constabulary, his family said: ‘Steve was a much-loved husband, father, son, brother and friend.
‘He was an amazing individual whose only goal in life was to help others in any way possible.
‘He made a lasting impression on everyone who had the privilege of knowing him.
‘He will be deeply missed but forever in the hearts of his loved ones.’
Chamberlain was hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning and has now died
Cambridgeshire Police appealed for witnesses after a collision between a pedestrian and a car in Newmarket Road in Stretham, Cambridgeshire, saying a man in his 50s had been taken to hospital with serious injuries.
The force has said there is ‘nothing to suggest anything suspicious at this stage’, adding that the driver stayed at the scene and is helping with enquiries. No arrests have been made.
In a statement issued on Monday, Chamberlain’s lawyer Gary Lincenberg told MailOnline: ‘Our dear client and friend Steve Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out running.
‘He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity. We deeply miss him.
‘Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family.’
Chamberlain faced the same charges of fraud and conspiracy as his former boss for allegedly scheming to inflate a company’s value before it was sold. Both the men were acquitted of all 15 charges by a jury in San Francisco in June.
After leaving the company, Autonomy, in 2012, Chamberlain worked as chief operating officer for cybersecurity firm Darktrace and volunteered as a finance director for Cambridge United soccer club, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The law firm that represented Chamberlain in his trial did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
