A DIVING expert fears the pressure under 164ft of water means it is unlikely the missing Bayesian yacht passengers are alive.
Phil Jones, of the UK-based search team Beneath the Surface, told The Sun it very quickly “becomes a recovery operation” in such circumstances.
The frantic hunt for survivors is about to enter its third day as divers desperately look for a way to access the yacht‘s cabins 50 metres under the surface.
It comes as horrifying CCTV shows the moment the yacht was engulfed by the storm.
The 183ft boat – which was anchored for the night off the coast of Sicily, was caught in a storm, including a tornadic waterspout which snapped the mast, at around 4am on Monday.
It sunk quickly to the depths within 60 seconds – and six people remain missing, feared dead.
Among them are four Brits, including yacht owner and tech tycoon Mike Lynch – who was hosting a party to celebrate being cleared of fraud charges in the US.
“Normally, in underwater conditions you are looking at the first hour or so,” said Mr Jones, from Trawden, Lancashire.
It comes as…
“Then it becomes a recovery operation.”
He explained those who survived the ordeal to be quickly rescued were lucky.
“It all happened so quickly that I think unless you’re very close to an open exit it’d be very difficult then to escape,” he explained.
“And I believe that some of them may have even been asleep.”
The yacht’s cabins would have quickly filled with water, and combined with the pressure at 50 metres down, chances of survival would be slim, Mr Jones said.
“Without oxygen the brain starts to get damage after between five and eight minutes,” he said.
“So, it really is a very short period to be able to try and and save somebody who’s underwater.”
Mr Jones went on to say, in “some rare circumstances” when ships capsize as the Bayesian did they are found to have “created an air bubble, an air pocket that somebody’s survived in”.
“But that’s very rare. It very quickly underwater becomes a recovery operation rather than rescue.”
Asked if it was possible air pockets had occurred on Monday, meaning more survivors, Mr Jones said: “It is very unlikely, unfortunately.”
“Once it’s sunk, there’s going to be so many hazards and entrapment,” he said.
He added that searching coastal conditions – particularly for divers – is “very difficult, almost impossible”.
“The best case scenario would be that there’s people alive, but I think that’s unlikely now.
“The second best scenario is that they are contained inside that yacht, and the divers eventually will be able to clear that yacht.”
Asked how much forewarning those on board would have had of the incoming storm, he said: “They may not have known the the full extent.
“They may have had weather warnings and some idea of adverse weather coming.
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
THE BAYESIAN superyacht was hosting a lavish party for 12 guests, with 10 crew also onboard.
After 15 people were rescued from the water on Monday, six people remain missing and one has been found dead.
Italian authorities said the man recovered near the yacht wreckage was the chef working onboard.
Four of the missing are British and two are American.
Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18, are among the four Brits lost at sea.
International chairman of bank giant Morgan Stanley, Brit Jonathan Bloomer, 70, is also missing along with his wife Judy.
As is top New York lawyer Chris Morvillo, a solicitor at major firm Clifford Chance who worked for Mike Lynch, and his wife Neda.
“Weather conditions can change extremely quickly, especially in these tropical climates.
“And especially when there’s been previous storms already throughout the last couple of weeks in the area.”
Mr Jones continued: “It may have changed very quickly. It may have been that it was just unsafe for them to head support once they in adverse weather.
“Sometimes it’s actually more dangerous to head into shore, and so it’s a race.”
Referring to the waterspout, he said: “There’s two different types. There’s the fair weather waterspout, which is more common than the tornadic one… and you’d have to be very unfortunate to get in the way of one of those.
Mr Jones added: “They do happen. It could just be a very unfortunate tragic accident that they would just caught in the wrong place.”
He went on to describe the difficulties faced by the dive teams tasked with scouring the wreckage.
The specialist divers are navigating pitch black depths in 10-minute intervals – but that’s only half of it.
Once it’s sunk, there’s going to be so many hazards and entrapment.
Phil Jones
He said he is unsure for the exact reason for the dive intervals but that the teams will be looking “gas mixtures” and the best ways of manoeuvring the space.
“It’ll all be down to depth,” he added.
A hole was also being created in the hull to open up the wreckage a little more.
“Anyone who’s been on a boat or a yacht will know that the corridors and doors are quite narrow, anyway,” said Mr Jones.
“And they are considerably more so under underwater.
“There’s gonna be furniture and other kind of debris lying around, possibly blocking doors.
“It’s gonna be a very difficult search inside the yacht itself.”
He continued: “I mean you’re looking at the mast itself with the ropes and things like that, they can all be dangerous to divers.
“As soon as the diver gets down there. It’s everything is going to be methodical and for the divers’ safety.”
It comes as emergency teams trying to access the Bayesian will have to make “a big choice” as the rescue efforts intensify, a maritime diving and wreckage expert said.
Bertrand Sciboz told BBC News: “I think 50 metres is a limit to dive with a certain category of professional divers, so you will need to dive with some kind of helmet and pipe and (be) connected to the surface for oxygen, and also for for speaking and hearing and telling what you see and and do.
“It’s always very difficult, and especially with a sailing vessel, because you’ve got rope everywhere, you’ve got a sail which is floating in the current, because we are in Mediterranean Sea and not in the English Channel.
“But the main thing, you know, it’s the fact that in those kind of conditions, it’s very hard to go inside the wreck, and they will have to have to make a big choice at one moment, of salvaging the whole wreck or rescuing the bodies.”
The yacht was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew. It sank half a mile off the coast of the island’s capital Palermo.
Footage and pictures from the scene showed hordes of firefighters, divers and police scouring the water all day Monday, overnight and again on Tuesday.
All six people missing are tragically believed to still be inside the wreck, the Italian Coast Guard has said.
Tech tycoon Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Charlotte are among those unaccounted for.
Top New York lawyer Chris Morvillo, a solicitor at major firm Clifford Chance who worked for Mr Lynch, and his wife Neda are also missing.
International chairman of bank giant Morgan Stanley, Brit Jonathan Bloomer, 70, along with his wife Judy, are also missing.
Clifford Chance lawyer Ayla Ronald, 36, and her partner were also among those rescued – as was Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, 57.
The latter suffered horrific injuries after walking across broken glass to safety.
Mr Lynch, previously dubbed “the British Bill Gates“, was hosting a party on the boat along with his wife and daughter.
The business tycoon – worth an estimated £852m – was surrounded by members of his legal firm and company Invoke Capital to celebrate a US jury clearing him of fraud earlier this summer.
He was extradited to the US in 2023 over the £8.5billion sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 and was accused of inflating the company’s value.
The dad-of-two had spent a year under house arrest in the States.
He was cleared of 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy, following a trial in San Francisco in June.
By Georgie English, Foreign News Reporter
ENTREPRENEUR Mike Lynch is still believed to be missing hours after a £14m luxury yacht capsized in a tornado off the coast of Sicily.
The tech tycoon, dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates”, was one of the 22 people sailing onboard the £166,000 a week vessel, the Telegraph reported this afternoon.
Lynch, 59, sold Autonomy Corporation – a tech company for $11b to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
He has also been involved in Invoke Capital and cybersecurity company Darktrace.
He was awarded an OBE for his services to enterprise in 2006.
Born in Ilford, Lynch had a firefighter father from County Cork and a nurse mother from County Tipperary.
Away from work, Mike is married to wife Angela Bacares and the pair have two children together.
In 2023, the Sunday Times rich list set the couple’s value at £852m.
Just weeks ago, Lynch was acquitted of criminal charges by a jury in San Francisco after a 12-year legal battle over the $11bn sale of his firm, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
He was extradited to the US on fraud charges back in 2023 with a judge setting his bail at £79m.
US Marshsals took Lynch into custody at Heathrow, putting him in chains and bundling him on board a United Airlines flight.
However, he had a few things in his favour.
The nature of the case led to a boring and turgid trial, including painstaking parades of emails, reports and spreadsheets filled with jargon, leaving jurors glassy-eyed.
One was even dismissed because he repeatedly fell asleep.
Lynch argued that any questionable activity was entirely immaterial in the context of a thriving business bringing in hundreds of millions a year.
While his lawyers claimed the books were approved by outside accountants and that, by British standards, the deals in question were appropriately accounted for.
Lynch was used as the final witness and rather than going “right for the jugular”, as his head lawyer Brian Heberlig said, the prosecutors simply “reviewed a chronology of documents, with no probing questions”. The jury agreed.
