MADRID, Spain -- Billionaire British newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell died Tuesday in an unexplained plunge from his luxury yacht into the Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands.
His naked body was spotted by an air force pilot during a massive air and sea search. It was taken by helicopter from the waters about 20 miles southwest of the island Gran Canaria and flown to a military base on the island of Las Palmas and identified by his son, Philip, said rescue spokesman Estevan Pacha.
Maxwell, 68, whose vast holdings include the New York Daily News, was last seen before dawn, strolling on the deck of his motor yacht Lady Ghislaine, which was cruising off the Canaries near North Africa, but his absence was not noticed until midday.
London's International Stock Exchange suspended trading of stock in Maxwell's Mirror Group Newspapers and Maxwell Communications Corp. at the companies' request. Two of his three sons were made acting chairmen of the businesses. Fortune magazine has listed Maxwell's assets at $1.8 billion.
Maxwell, who had been taking a few days' rest aboard his yacht, was to have attended a meeting Monday night in London of the Anglo-Israeli Association. But 30 minutes before his scheduled appearance, his wife said doctors had forbidden him to appear for undisclosed reasons, British Broadcasting Corp. radio said.
The Czechoslovakian-born Maxwell has financial interest in newspapers, publishing, cable and television worldwide. Besides the New York Daily News, his empire includes Macmillan Publishing, the Daily Mirror in London and the weekly newspaper, The European.
Charles Wilson, editorial director of Maxwell's Mirror Newspaper Group, said the billionaire was last seen on the deck of his yacht about 4:30 a.m. and for about eight hours after that the crew believed he was in his stateroom.
It was only when he failed to answer an urgent telephone call from New York in his cabin late Tuesday morning that his disappearance was discovered, Wilson said.
The Lady Ghislaine's captain, Gus Rankin, could not reach Maxwell on the yacht's telephone around midday Tuesday and ordered three searches of the vessel, which turned up no clue to his whereabouts.
'We can only think that he disappeared at about 5 a.m.,' said Pacha, the Merchant Marine Rescue Center spokesman in Madrid.
At 2 p.m., Rankin notified the Spanish Coast Guard in the Canaries' capital of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which mounted a wide search of the area, including two Spanish helicopters, a Spanish air-sea rescue launch and at least a dozen other vessels of various nationalities.
The yacht docked after the tragedy at the marina at the resort of Los Cristianos on the island of Tenerife.
Maxwell's naked body was found shortly after sundown. 'We don't know if this man was clothed when he fell into the sea,' said a Spanish air force official at the Gran Canaria base. 'The clothing could have easily been washed off his body by the waves.'
Wilson, of the Mirror Newspaper Group, told the BBC in London that it was 'pretty normal' for Maxwell to rise in the middle of the night.
He dismissed suggestions that Maxwell may have been under pressure due to financial strains on his empire and a payment due in October 1992 of $750 million on a debt of $2.4 billion. 'What normal people consider pressure was meat and drink to Robert Maxwell,' he said.
Shortly after Maxwell's disappearance was announced, a son, Ian, was appointed acting chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers, and another son, Kevin, was named acting chairman of Maxwell Communications.
Maxwell, the son of Orthodox Jewish peasants, was born in central Europe in what is now Czechoslovakia. Most of his family was killed in the Nazi Holocaust, and he eventually volunteered for the British army, where he earned the Military Cross for valor during World War II.
After the war he served in the British Foreign Office, later served in Parliament as a Labor Party member and has since built up his communications empire that stretches from the United States to the Middle East.
The publisher, who has a helicopter pad atop Maxwell House in London where his executive offices and penthouse are located, is well known for taking an active role in running his newspapers.
In March he bought the Daily News from the Tribune Co. of Chicago, ending a 147-day strike, attracting back many of its old advertisers and boosting circulation from a 600,000 daily during the strike to what is now reported to be 900,000.
'He was certainly larger than life,' said Mirror Group editorial director Charles Wilson. 'He was a most charismatic figure, a man of great strength, great vigor, great enthusiasm, a man who built huge businesses. I think if he is lost, he will then indeed be a great loss to the publishing industry and indeed to the country.'
A Spanish Coast Guard spokesman said Maxwell was believed to have been missing from his luxury ship Lady Ghislane since 4 a.m. Spanish time, but his disappearance went unnoticed for several hours.
'The (search) area is so large because the captain of the cruiser does not know exactly what time this person went missing,' said an official at the Rescue Control Center in Madrid.
'He believes it was about 4 a.m. But his disappearance was not noticed until mid-day. We got the missing person report two hours later, ' the spokesman said.
An alarm was raised at 2 p.m. Spanish time in a radio message from the yacht to the Coast Guard, the spokesman said. He said the search covered a 'wide area' of the Canary islands.
Maxwell made a long journey from a childhood of poverty in central Europe to become one of Britain's preeminent newspaper publishers with financial interests in papers, publishing, cable and television throughout the world.
In March, Maxwell bought the Daily News from the Tribune Co. of Chicago, ending a 147-day strike. He put the tabloid back on its feet, attracting back many of its old advertisers and boosting circulation from a 600,000 daily during the strike to what is now reported to be 900,000.
In February, Maxwell acquired the defunct British Sunday paper, The Correspondent, and merged it with his weekly The European, which is sold in Britain and on mainland Europe.
The flamboyant jet-setting publisher, who has a helicopter pad atop Maxwell House in England where his executive offices and penthouse are located, is well-known for taking an active role in running his newspapers.
Seven years ago, Maxwell, achieved a longtime ambition to become a national newspaper publisher by purchasing Mirror Group Newspapers from Reed International for $210 million. The group includes the Daily Mirror, a tabloid with a circulation of about 3 million, and its sister newspaper the Scottish Daily Record.
The Daily Mirror has been locked in a circulation battle with tabloids The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and The Daily Star. All three competing for a daily readership of 7.5 million.
The Mirror Group's Sunday publications include the Sunday Mirror and The People in England and the Sunday Mail in Scotland. The Mirror Group also publishes The Sporting Life, a racing and sports daily.
In 1990, Maxwell launched The European, hoping to establish it as 'the first national newspaper' as Europe headed for economic and possibly political union. The newspaper reached a circulation of 226,099 at the end of last year.
In 1988 in the United States, Maxwell Communications, the main company of the Maxwell organization, acquired in the publishing house Macmillan as well as Official Airline Guides.
Maxwell was born June 10, 1923, in the Ruthenia region in central Europe, then part of Czechoslovakia. He was one of seven children and had only three years of formal education.
Most of his family died in the Holocaust but he managed to escape and make his way via the Middle East to France, where he joined the Czech army, according to a biography provided by the Mirror Group.
After the Nazi occupation of France he went to Britain and volunteered for the army. After the Normandy invasion, he received the Military Cross in 1945 for outstanding leadership and bravery during a battle on the Dutch-German border.
Maxwell, who worked briefly for the Foreign Office after World War II, served as a Labor Party member of Parliament from 1964 to 1970 and has been an active in support of the party.
Maxwell married in 1945. He and his wife have seven children and seven grandchildren.
Billionaire British newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell died Tuesday in an unexplained plunge from his luxury yacht into the Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands.
His naked body was spotted by an air force pilot during a massive air and sea search. It was taken by helicopter from the waters about 20 miles southwest of the island Gran Canaria and flown to a military base on the island of Las Palmas and identified by his son, Philip, said rescue spokesman Estevan Pacha.
Maxwell, 68, whose vast holdings include the New York Daily News, was last seen before dawn, strolling on the deck of his motor yacht Lady Ghislaine, which was cruising off the Canaries near North Africa, but his absence was not noticed until midday.
London's International Stock Exchange suspended trading of stock in Maxwell's Mirror Group Newspapers and Maxwell Communications Corp. at the companies' request. Two of his three sons were made acting chairmen of the businesses. Fortune magazine has listed Maxwell's assets at $1.8 billion.
Maxwell, who had been taking a few days' rest aboard his yacht, was to have attended a meeting Monday night in London of the Anglo-Israeli Association. But 30 minutes before his scheduled appearance, his wife said doctors had forbidden him to appear for undisclosed reasons, British Broadcasting Corp. radio said.
The Czechoslovakian-born Maxwell has financial interest in newspapers, publishing, cable and television worldwide. Besides the New York Daily News, his empire includes Macmillan Publishing, the Daily Mirror in London and the weekly newspaper, The European.
Charles Wilson, editorial director of Maxwell's Mirror Newspaper Group, said the billionaire was last seen on the deck of his yacht about 4:30 a.m. and for about eight hours after that the crew believed he was in his stateroom.
It was only when he failed to answer an urgent telephone call from New York in his cabin late Tuesday morning that his disappearance was discovered, Wilson said.
The Lady Ghislaine's captain, Gus Rankin, could not reach Maxwell on the yacht's telephone around midday Tuesday and ordered three searches of the vessel, which turned up no clue to his whereabouts.
'We can only think that he disappeared at about 5 a.m.,' said Pacha, the Merchant Marine Rescue Center spokesman in Madrid.
At 2 p.m., Rankin notified the Spanish Coast Guard in the Canaries' capital of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which mounted a wide search of the area, including two Spanish helicopters, a Spanish air-sea rescue launch and at least a dozen other vessels of various nationalities.
The yacht docked after the tragedy at the marina at the resort of Los Cristianos on the island of Tenerife.
Maxwell's naked body was found shortly after sundown. 'We don't know if this man was clothed when he fell into the sea,' said a Spanish air force official at the Gran Canaria base. 'The clothing could have easily been washed off his body by the waves.'
Wilson, of the Mirror Newspaper Group, told the BBC in London that it was 'pretty normal' for Maxwell to rise in the middle of the night.
He dismissed suggestions that Maxwell may have been under pressure due to financial strains on his empire and a payment due in October 1992 of $750 million on a debt of $2.4 billion. 'What normal people consider pressure was meat and drink to Robert Maxwell,' he said.
Shortly after Maxwell's disappearance was announced, a son, Ian, was appointed acting chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers, and another son, Kevin, was named acting chairman of Maxwell Communications.
Maxwell, the son of Orthodox Jewish peasants, was born in central Europe in what is now Czechoslovakia. Most of his family was killed in the Nazi Holocaust, and he eventually volunteered for the British army, where he earned the Military Cross for valor during World War II.
After the war he served in the British Foreign Office, later served in Parliament as a Labor Party member and has since built up his communications empire that stretches from the United States to the Middle East.
The publisher, who has a helicopter pad atop Maxwell House in London where his executive offices and penthouse are located, is well known for taking an active role in running his newspapers.
In March he bought the Daily News from the Tribune Co. of Chicago, ending a 147-day strike, attracting back many of its old advertisers and boosting circulation from a 600,000 daily during the strike to what is now reported to be 900,000.
'He was certainly larger than life,' said Mirror Group editorial director Charles Wilson. 'He was a most charismatic figure, a man of great strength, great vigor, great enthusiasm, a man who built huge businesses. I think if he is lost, he will then indeed be a great loss to the publishing industry and indeed to the country.'
