Divers desperately trying to find the six passengers missing after Mike Lynch’s superyacht sank have tried to smash through a breach in the boat’s hull to reach the cabin.
Luxury sailboat Bayesian was docked off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, Italy, when a ‘whirlwind’ 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 tech British billionaire Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah remain missing.
The Italian coastguard has insisted it is continuing its search, even though a positive outcome after nearly two days is ‘difficult to imagine’.
Frigate Captain Vincenzo Zagarola told Italian radio station RTL: ‘Given the time that has passed and the circumstances of the event, it is naturally difficult to imagine that things can go well but we are not giving up, so we are busy [searching] with naval and air resources.’
Meanwhile, an engineer has claimed the missing passengers could still be alive in air pockets, meaning divers are competing in a race against time.
Nick Sloane, who worked on the Costa Concordia salvage operation, said divers are entering a ‘critical’ 24 hours to rescue anyone who might still be alive.
‘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,’ he told Sky News.
‘You’ve got a maximum of two to three days to try to get someone out, so the next 24 hours are critical.’
Divers from Napoli and Messina are assisting with the huge search operation.
A helicopter was seen flying over Porticello this afternoon, while an underwater vehicle has been helping divers search for missing passengers.
Italian rescue workers are using a remotely operated underwater vehicle in their search.
In a statement, the coastguard said five patrol cars, one helicopter and divers had been working since the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Despite the sliver of hope, Italian Coastguard officials admitted 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.’
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.
Among the 15 who survived include a one-year-old British baby called Sofia, who was kept afloat by her mother, 36-year-old Charlotte Golunski.
Mrs Golunski, an Oxford graduate and senior associate at Invoke, also survived after fighting to prevent her child from drowning.
The mother told Italian newspaper Republicca: ‘I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.
‘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.’
Mrs Golunski’s British husband James Emsilie, 36, also survived the tragedy.
Another survivor is Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, who is now reportedly recovering from her injuries in a wheelchair.
She revealed that the first sign of the freak waterspout that sunk the luxury sailboat Bayesian was a ‘slight tilt’ that woke her up.
Lynch’s wife told La Repubblica that she and her husband woke up at 4am when the boat suddenly ’tilted’.
Mrs Bacares said that they were not worried at the time, but that she still got up to see what was happening, until glass shattered and created confusion on board.
She sustained abrasions on her feet – likely after walking on glass shards during the sinking – which have left her unable to walk and sitting in a wheelchair, La Repubblica reports, while she also has bandages on others part of her body.
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.