Mike Lynch yacht latest: Missing banker’s brother says ‘air pockets’ may offer slim chance of survival

The prestigious Latimer High School in Hammersmith, where Hannah Lynch was a pupil, said they were all “incredibly shocked” after the yacht sank with those on board.

“We are all incredibly shocked by the news that Hannah and her father are among those missing in this tragic accident and our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved as we await further updates,” a company spokesperson said.

according to The Times Hannah had just completed her A-levels and won a place to study English at Oxford, having won a number of academic awards during her time at school.

It was supposed to be a summer celebration.

British tech mogul Mike Lynch has assembled his trusted lawyers who have been with him every step of the way to help him emerge unscathed from a grueling 13-year legal battle. Twelve guests have traveled to the picturesque Italian port of Porticello near Palermo from the UK and the US. CanadaNew Zealand and Ireland, to mark the end of a fraud trial that had consumed much of their lives.

But now one person has died and six others, including Lynch, are missing, as hopes of a successful rescue operation fade after the ship capsized in bad weather in the early hours of Monday morning.

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A doctor who treated the 15 survivors of the Bayesian yacht in the immediate aftermath of its sinking said the injured spoke of “darkness” as the boat capsized.

Dr Fabio Genco described “horrific scenes” as guests and crew searched for their loved ones, while his main concern was treating the child in case she had ingested the salt water.

“The word the mother and all the injured kept repeating was ‘darkness’ as the ship sank,” he added.

“They talked about five minutes, three to five minutes, from the moment the boat was lifted and raised by the waves until it sank.”

The brother of the Morgan Stanley chairman who disappeared after his luxury yacht sank off Sicily said he hoped air pockets were keeping the people alive.

Speaking to the BBC, Jonathan’s twin brother Jeremy Bloomer said he was optimistic.

“It’s a slow process and it’s going to take some time. So there could be air pockets, but we don’t know. It’s still a wait and see thing, so hopefully all the predictions come true,” he said.

The search for British billionaire Mike Lynch and his daughter has reached a critical stage after the businessman’s yacht sank in a hurricane off the coast of Palermo, the capital of Sicily.

The Independent explains everything we know so far:

The wife of British billionaire Mike Lynch and other survivors took refuge in a hotel six minutes’ drive from Porticello, near where the boat sank.

A hotel guest told the Mirror that the mother is in a dire state as she awaits updates on whether her husband and daughter Hannah, 18, are alive.

Angela Pakaris and 15 other passengers were able to make it to safety after a violent storm hit them shortly after 4 a.m. Monday, engulfing her sailing yacht Baysian in a tower of water.

The 57-year-old woman described how she woke up early that morning after the boat had “slanted” sharply, and after initially thinking nothing was wrong she found herself covered in broken glass, according to Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

She then fled her cabin – where she cut her feet on broken glass strewn across the deck – and safely escaped the boat, which disappeared beneath the waves within minutes.

One friend described Mike Lynch as “a very easy person to talk to”, with a “nice sense of humour”.

Richard Smith, who lives near Lynch in the village of Pettistree in Suffolk, told the BBC: “He’s a very friendly person and easy to talk to. He has a nice sense of humour. You’d think with all that money he’d be hard to talk to, but he was actually a very easy person to talk to.”

The race to rescue any survivors from the sunken Bay yacht is set to enter a crucial phase, with divers successfully breaking a glass window to enter the hull.

Italian authorities have released drone footage of a “long and complex” operation to try to enter the wreckage of the sunken yacht Albayzin.

While friends hoped the remaining six missing had found air pockets on the deck of the sunken ship and managed to survive for more than 50 hours, Vincenzo Zagarola of the Italian Coast Guard said he feared they were dead.

When asked about the possibility of them being alive, he said: “Never say never, but it stands to reason that the answer is no.”

“We think they are still inside the boat, that is our very hard idea.

“Of course we do not rule out that they are not inside the boat, but we know that the boat sank quickly.

“We believe the six missing people may not have had time to get off the boat.”