The Italian Coast Guards carried a body on a rescue boat in Porticello harbor near Palermo, with a third body at the back of the boat on August 21, 2024, two days after the British-flagged luxury yacht Bayesian sank. Divers searching for six missing people following the sinking of a superyacht off Sicily in a storm have found four bodies, a source close to the search told AFP. The Bayesian, which had 22 people aboard including 10 crew, was anchored some 700 meters from port before dawn when it was struck by a waterspout. Among the six missing were UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, and Jonathan Bloomer, the chair of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy.

The *Bayesian*, a 183-foot vessel, sank around 5 a.m. local time on Monday, August 19, after it was hit by a tornadic waterspout during a storm. At the time the yacht sank, there were 22 people on board, including 12 passengers and 10 crew members. The three-day search operation has been complicated by the depth of the wreck and debris hampering efforts to access the cabins. Fire crews have described the operation as “complex,” with divers limited to 12-minute underwater shifts.

A source close to the survivors told that the passengers on board were celebrating after Lynch was acquitted in June in a financial fraud trial in the U.S. “That’s why he took his closest friends and colleagues on the trip,” the source said. “Given his age and some health issues, he was very clear that he would probably die in prison in America,” said the journalist.