Schoolfriends of 18-year-old Hannah Lynch are anxiously waiting for updates on her safe return after the teenager went missing alongside her tech billionaire father when his superyacht suddenly sank.
Luxury sailboat Bayesian was docked off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, Italy, when a waterspout hit the area just before 5am on Monday morning, wrecking the boat and causing it to rapidly sink.
While 15 of the 22 people on board were rescued by nearby ships, the yacht’s chef tragically died while six people including Hannah and her father Mike Lynch are still missing.
The prestigious Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, west London, said it is ‘in shock’ after former pupil Hannah was one of the six to disappear following the ‘whirlwind’.
A spokesperson for the £25,000-a-year school said: ‘We are all incredibly shocked by the news that Hannah and her father are among those missing in this tragic incident and our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved as we await further updates.’
Hannah had just completed her A-Levels and gained a place to study English at Oxford before the tragedy.
The teenager was on board the superyacht with her father Lynch and mother Angela Bacares, who survived the tragedy and is now in a wheelchair due to her injuries.
Hannah was an academically gifted pupil and had won a number of awards at the school between 2017 and 2024, including outstanding academic achievement while in lower sixth form and the William C Smith award for poetry.
Mr Lynch and his wife Angela Lynch were also frequent donors to the school, contributing to Latymer Upper School’s bursary fund in 2023, 2022 and 2021.
The vessel – which had been carrying 10 crew members and 12 passengers – had been moored just 300 metres from the coast near Palermo when it was hit by a terrifying waterspout at around 5am, with the ship’s captain saying those on board were blindsided and ‘didn’t see it coming’.
Tornado-speed winds flipped the superyacht so quickly that people on board were left swimming for their lives with those who made it off stranded in the pitch black water as the storm raged around them.
One maritime expert has said suggested that despite potentially facing winds of up to 100mph as a result of the extremely rare phenomenon the boat should have been able to withstand the force of the gales, raising questions about how it ended up sinking.
Search teams have already found the body of one man, thought to be an onboard chef, and there are fears that more bodies will be found in the hull of the ship by specialist divers today, while some survivors – including the captain – remain in hospital.
Mr Lynch, once dubbed the British Bill Gates and worth an estimated £852million, had taken his family and friends on the ‘victory’ trip after being acquitted of fraud charges.
However, the dream trip, hosted by the 59-year-old father-of-two from Suffolk who claimed he was living a ‘second life’ after almost a year under house arrest, turned into a nightmare and tragedy struck.
In an extraordinary twist, the sinking comes days after Stephen Chamberlain, an ex-colleague of Mr Lynch – who he had successfully fought the fraud case with – was fatally injured when he was hit by a car while running on Saturday morning.
Police have said there’s nothing to suggest anything suspicious in his death and no arrests have been made after the driver of a car stayed at the scene following the collision. Mr Chamberlain later died of his injuries.
Also among the missing are Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo who represented Mr Lynch in his recent legal battle, along with both of their wives.
During yesterday’s frantic search it was reported that bodies had been seen through the portholes in some of the cabins, although it is believed that divers have not been able to get inside the vessel due to furniture obstructing the way in.
Another survivor is Clifford Chance lawyer Ayla Ronald, 36, who was part of the successful legal team invited to go sailing with Lyncchah, according to her father Lin.
On-board hostesses Leah Randall, 20, from South Africa, also survived the tragedy.
Heidi Randall, Leah’s mother, told Sky News: ‘I’m beyond relieved that my daughter’s life was spared by the grace of God.
‘It doesn’t make it any easier living with heartache of those who have lost their lives or missing.’
Leah was photographed leaving the coastguard headquarters yesterday alongside a fellow crew member.
Other survivors included Irish woman Sasha Murray, 29, Matthew Fletcher, 41, from London, James Calfield 51, from New Zealand, Myin Htun Kyaw, 39, from Myanmar and the French Captain Matthew Griffith.
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.
They were rescued by crews from nearby boats including that of Karsten Borner, the captain of a sailing ship anchored near the Bayesian, who said his team struggled to keep their boat afloat when the tornado hit.
Fabio Cefalu, a fisherman in Porticello who witnessed the tragedy unfold, said he saw a waterspout – a sort of mini-tornado – that lasted about 12 minutes shortly before 4am.
At around 4.10am he said he saw a red flare go off from Bayesian but by the time he was able to reach the area about 20 minutes later the yacht had all but disappeared. ‘We found only the cushions, and a few planks floating in the water,’ he said.
Two more survivors were named as on-board hostess Katya Chicken, 23, from Germany, and Leo Eppel.
Katya has been interviewed by officials from the CoastGuard investigating the circumstances of the sinking.
On Tuesday evening two crew members, Tus Koopmans and Eaton Parker, were also named as survivors. No age or nationalities were provided.