The body of the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch was among those recovered by Italian divers, an official in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, said on Thursday, confirming that he was killed when a violent storm struck his yacht this week.
Of the 22 people on board when the yacht was caught in a violent storm off the coast of Sicily early Monday, nine crew members and six passengers survived.
As of Thursday afternoon, Italian recovery teams had retrieved the bodies of the one remaining crew member and five passengers who had been on the yacht, which now lies in 165 feet of water off the port of Porticello, and were searching for one more passenger.
The death of Mr. Lynch was confirmed by Massimo Mariani, the prefect of Palermo, who said that the remaining missing person was the technology entrepreneur’s daughter Hannah.
The others who victims were 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.
“This is an unimaginable grief to shoulder,” the Bloomer family said in a statement. “Our parents were incredible people.”
The Morvillo family said it was “completely devastated by the passing of Chris and Neda,” and added, “Their passing is a tremendous loss.”
The yacht was caught in a sudden downpour. Weather experts said that strong winds and lightning had hit the area and that the yacht had most likely been struck by air generated within a thunderstorm descending rapidly or by a waterspout, similar to a tornado over water.
Rescue teams involving deep sea divers with the Italian firefighters’ corps, coordinated by the coast guard, as well as helicopters and rescue ships, had worked to reach the hull of the ship, which had settled on its side on the sea floor.
Carlo Dall’Oppio, the national head of Italy’s firefighters, said on Thursday that the boat was tilted by 90 degrees on the sea bottom. He said the bodies had been found “in the cabins,” although it remained unclear if they were all found in the same one.
The rescue teams recovered four bodies on Wednesday and one on Thursday, bringing them ashore in body bags in front of a crowd of reporters and onlookers.
The priority remained “the recovery of the missing body,” said Mr. Mariani. Once that search is completed, the judicial authorities would decide the next steps, he said.
The bodies recovered so far were already at the disposal of prosecutors, he said, “and then there is the investigative phase,” which would include the recovery of the yacht.
The Italian prosecutors handling the case have attracted strong criticism from the local press association because of their reluctance to share any information with reporters.
As of Thursday, they had not held a news conference or released a statement on the investigation, generating what the Sicilian press association called “a black market of news” that made it hard to verify information.
Finally, on Thursday afternoon, Ambrogio Cartosio, the prosecutor handling the case, said that a news conference would be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday in the town of Termini Imerese, the location of his office.
Mr. Mariani said the operations to recover the bodies had gone quickly, taking into account that the divers had a limited amount of time — about 12 minutes — to operate before coming up.
“It was complicated and also potentially dangerous for the divers,” he said, because of the size of the yacht. “There are objective difficulties; thankfully, they are well trained and know what they are doing.”
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