Divers on Friday recovered the body of the final person who had been missing after a violent storm off the coast of Sicily sent a luxury yacht to the bottom of the sea, the Italian firefighter service said.
The discovery of the body, that of Hannah Lynch, the 18-year-old daughter of the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who also died in the yacht’s sinking, put an end to a wrenching search and to the slim hopes that any of the missing people might have survived.
Ms. Lynch, whose family owned the yacht, was the final person who had been formally unaccounted for since Monday after tragedy struck a group that had been celebrating her father’s victory in a high-profile fraud case.
There were 10 crew members and 12 passengers on board the 180-foot vessel, named Bayesian after the mathematical theorem around which Mike Lynch had built his technology empire. Fifteen survived.
The body of the ship’s cook, identified as Recaldo Thomas, was found on Monday, a few hours after a downpour hit the northwestern coast of Sicily, near the port of Porticello, where the yacht had been anchored at sea.
But it took several days to recover the bodies of the six passengers who were apparently trapped inside the yacht, which went down sometime after about 4 a.m.: Mr. Lynch and Ms. Lynch; Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Christopher J. Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.
Mr. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was among those who managed to reach the safety of a raft. They were rescued by a sailing schooner that had been bobbing about 150 yards from the yacht.
As prosecutors from the nearby city of Termini Imerese began conducting interviews with the survivors and possible witnesses, the crew and passengers of the Bayesian have been confined to a local hotel, where the news media have been denied access.
Salvatore Cocina, the head of Sicily’s civil protection agency, said on Thursday that the survivors had turned down the psychological assistance offered to them.
Local and national news organizations have complained that prosecutors have not issued a statement or held a news conference. Prosecutors may shed more light on the yacht’s sinking when they hold a news conference on Saturday.
One of the major questions is what caused the boat to sink: Was it the fault of the boat maker, of the crew or of a powerful act of nature — or some combination of the three? None of those who were onboard the Bayesian have spoken publicly.
The luxury yacht, built by the Italian manufacturer Perini Navi and launched in 2008, had the second-tallest aluminum mast in the world, according to its makers.
Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought Perini Navi, said that the Bayesian would be “unsinkable” if the proper procedures were followed. But yacht design experts have cautioned that the lesson of the Titanic, the ocean liner that sank on its 1912 maiden voyage, showed that no vessel, no matter how robust, was worthy of that label. The investigation into the causes will take months, prosecutors said.
In Porticello, the sprawling presence of rescue services made a haunting backdrop for an otherwise tranquil port town. People sunbathed and ate ricotta-filled pastries, and stores selling sandals and dried fruit opened as normal, while coast guard and firefighting vessels came and went from the shore, taking scuba divers out to the shipwreck.
Other reminders of the tragedy could be seen along the coast, among palm trees and ice cream shops, with groups of onlookers staring out at the sea, now tranquil and flat.
Read More: Final Body Is Recovered From Yacht That Sank Off Sicily
