One dead in superyacht wreck off Italian coast; British billionaire among six missing

Aug. 19 (UPI) -- One person died and six, including British tech billionaire Mike Lynch, remain missing after a superyacht sunk while sailing in severe weather off the coast of Sicily on Monday morning before dawn.

Five of the missing people are believed to be British nationals. Authorities did not immediately publicly identify the person who died.

Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, was among 15 people who were rescued from the wreckage.

Firefighters said search operations continued into Monday while the Italian Coast Guard took the lead in the investigation.

Specialist divers were being deployed to the scene to assist in the search.

Officials said the superyacht was in about 164 feet of water when it turned over on its side during a storm, throwing some off the vessel. The captain of the boat said the 15 people who were rescued were evacuated onto life rafts until help arrived. The yacht eventually sank.

Lynch, who co-founded the British tech company Autonomy before selling it to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011, had been extradited to the United States to stand trial for allegedly inflating the value of his company before its sale.

A federal court in San Francisco, though, eventually acquitted Lynch of 15 fraud charges in 2022.