STAFF at the school attended by Hannah Lynch – one of the six believed to be trapped on the sunken Bayesian yacht – have spoken out about the tragedy.
The school said it is “incredibly shocked” over news that Hannah, 18, is feared dead alongside her billionaire tycoon dad Mike Lynch, 59, after the disaster in Italy on Monday.
The boat – which was anchored for the night off the coast of Palermo in Sicily, was caught in a storm, including a twister-like waterspout which snapped the mast at around 5am on Monday.
The yacht was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew, and sank within 60 seconds – with those unaccounted for now feared dead and trapped in the cabins.
Some 11 survivors were dragged to safety on a small inflatable life raft including Hannah’s mum Angela Bacares, 57.
The London Latymer School in Hammersmith told the Evening Standard: “We are all incredibly shocked by the news that Hannah and her father are among those missing in this tragic incident and our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved as we await further updates.”
The gifted teen was set to study English at the University of Oxford after recently finishing her A-levels, The Times reports.
She is thought to be the youngest of Mike Lynch’s two daughters.
Hannah was described by friends as gentle, kind and fun as well as a staunch feminist who hoped to become a writer.
It comes as…
Italian prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have now opened an investigation into the yacht disaster, according to local media.
They will seek to establish what caused the boat to sink and if any of the crew are criminally liable – or whether it was simply a freak weather event.
Lynch’s wife Angela was one of those rescued on Monday after the boat capsized.
The shell-shocked mum told Italian outlet La Repubblica that she and her husband woke up at around 4am on Monday to a sudden shift onboard.
Angela, who suffered horrific injuries to both feet, told the Italian outlet of the “slight tilt” she felt before tragedy struck.
She reportedly told Corriere that “everything was falling” around her and she was almost “carried away” before she managed to escape to safety.
Her husband Lynch, previously dubbed “the British Bill Gates”, was hosting a party on the boat.
The business tycoon – worth an estimated £852million – 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.
Divers returned to the wreck on Tuesday for day two of the search operation.
Officials later said they carved a hole inside the hull of the boat and managed to get inside the wreck, some 164ft feet down on the sea bed, but have yet to reach the cabins.
They compared it to a “small Concordia”, encountering small spaces and obstacles blocking their only routes.
Specialist divers working on the wreckage then are believed to be helping scour the Bayesian now.
Italian coastguard spokesman Vincenzo Zagarola said of the missing six yesterday: “We think they are still inside the boat, that is our very hard idea.
“Of course, we do not exclude that they are not inside the boat, but we know the boat sank quickly.
“We suppose that the six people missing may not have had time to get out of the boat.”
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.
