5 hours ago
3
Investigation opened successful yacht sinking
Work to rise a superyacht that sank successful Sicily past year, sidesplitting a U.K. tech mogul and six others, was suspended Saturday aft the decease of a specialized diver, according to section quality reports.
The diver was portion of a squad moving to rise the 185-foot "Bayesian" yacht that was struck by a pre-dawn tempest successful August past twelvemonth portion anchored disconnected Porticello, adjacent Palermo.
The yacht sunk wrong minutes aft being struck by thing akin to a mini-tornado, sidesplitting British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, his teenage girl and 5 others — Morgan Stanley International slope president Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy, U.S. lawyer Chris Morvillo, his woman Neda Morvillo and the yacht's cook Recaldo Thomas, the BBC reported. Fifteen radical managed to flight connected a lifeboat, including a one-year-old kid and Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares.
Authorities suspended enactment connected raising the vas aft prosecutors opened an probe Friday into the decease of a 39-year-old diver, according to Italian media.
According to archetypal reports, the diver was portion of a squad moving to chopped and region the 75-meter mast, a archetypal measurement earlier betterment of the yacht itself, which is lying connected its broadside connected the seabed immoderate 50 meters down.
Crew members, moving aboard the floating crane vessel HEBO, locomotion astatine the larboard aft a diver died during preliminary operations to retrieve British tech tycoon Mike Lynch's superyacht from the waters disconnected the seashore of Porticello, adjacent Palermo, Italy, May 9, 2025.
Igor Petyx / REUTERS
TMC Marine, the British institution moving to rise the superyacht, did not instantly respond to an AFP petition for much information.
In a connection Friday cited by quality reports, TMC Marine said it was cooperating with the probe and that "the circumstances of the mishap are presently being investigated by the authorities."
Work to bring up the yacht began past week, with Italy's coastguard saying it would instrumentality up to 25 days.
Inquests into the deaths of the 4 British victims of the yacht sinking are presently being held successful Ipswich, successful eastbound England.
In Italy, prosecutors successful Termini Imerese person opened investigations into the skipper and 3 others connected suspicion of manslaughter and the transgression of negligent shipwreck.
Lynch, the 59-year-old laminitis of bundle steadfast Autonomy, had invited friends and household onto the vessel to observe his recent acquittal successful a immense U.S. fraud case.
Who was Mike Lynch?
Lynch, erstwhile hailed arsenic "Britain's Bill Gates," roseate to prominence successful the precocious 1990s with the improvement of his bundle company, Autonomy, which helped businesses rapidly find accusation buried successful email and different integer documents. In 2011, Lynch sold the concern to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion, giving him a $800 cardinal payday and cementing him arsenic 1 of the U.K.'s richest people.
But the acquisition was later called one of the "most notorious failed mergers and acquisitions" aft HP discovered alleged accounting issues, starring to Lynch's firing by HP's then-CEO, Meg Whitman. HP claimed that Autonomy had utilized accounting improprieties to bolster its underlying financials up of the acquisition, charges that Lynch steadfastly denied.
The lawsuit stretched into a 12-year ineligible combat that ended successful June 2024 erstwhile a national tribunal assemblage successful San Francisco delivered not-guilty verdicts.
Mike Lynch, erstwhile main enforcement serviceman of Autonomy Corp., arrives astatine national tribunal successful San Francisco, California, connected Monday, March 18, 2024.
Loren Elliott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Lynch, who earned a PhD successful mathematical computing from the U.K.'s Cambridge University, archetypal cofounded a institution called Cambridge Neurodynamics, based connected the cofounders' enactment with signifier recognition. The steadfast utilized the tech to lucifer fingerprints and car licence plates, according to a 1997 article in The Guardian.
From there, Lynch cofounded Autonomy successful 1996, which relied connected a statistical exemplary called Bayesian inference, named aft a theorem developed by the 18th period statistician Thomas Bayes. (Lynch's luxury yacht was christened the "Bayesian.")
The institution tapped into the increasing request of businesses to benignant done and find accusation wrong the immense reams of information created by the expanding usage of computers and integer documents.
Autonomy's dependable maturation during its archetypal decennary resulted successful Lynch being awarded 1 of the U.K's highest honors, the Office of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire successful 2006.
Lynch told The Guardian successful 1997 that radical didn't rather judge that a increasing tech concern could look from the U.K.
"I person really heard the comment, 'England, software? I thought you made bony china,'" helium told the newspaper.
Aimee Picchi contributed to this report.
English (US) ·