 "How air pockets may offer a fighting chance to those on board sunken Bayesian yacht")
The luxury superyacht Bayesian was engulfed by the sea early Monday off the Sicilian coast in Italy. The 184-foot yacht, registered to the wife of British tech magnate Mike Lynch, capsized and sank to the seabed approximately 160 feet underwater, following an unexpected and severe storm.
As rescue teams continue their desperate search, the possibility of survivors still trapped inside has been a subject of intense speculation, hope, and anxiety.
The yacht, which departed from the Sicilian port of Milazzo on August 14, was last tracked east of Palermo before the storm struck.
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Onboard were 22 individuals, including Lynch, his daughter Hannah, and a number of distinguished guests. While 15 people managed to escape, including Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, six remain missing, sparking fears and prayers for their survival.
Could survivors still be trapped in the wreckage?
Search and rescue efforts have been ongoing since the tragic incident, with many clinging to the hope that the missing could still be alive, trapped within air pockets in the yacht’s wreckage.
“It’s a slow process and it will take time. So there might be air pockets, but we don’t know. It’s still wait and see, so fingers crossed,” Jeremy Bloomer, twin brother of missing Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, told BBC.
Expert opinions offer a mix of optimism and caution. Jean-Baptiste Souppez, a senior lecturer at Aston University, told Sky News, “The speed at which the vessel sank and the fact that it remains intact and on its side could favour the formation of small air pockets inside. This is obviously highly speculative and impossible to predict accurately.”
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Similarly, Nick Sloane, renowned for his work on the Costa Concordia salvage operation, highlighted the criticality of the next 24 hours, telling Sky News, “You’ve got a maximum of two to three days to try to get someone out, so the next 24 hours are critical.”
However, despite these glimmers of hope, Italian authorities have expressed growing skepticism about the chances of finding anyone alive. “Never say never, but reasonably the answer should be not,” Vincenzo Zagarola of the Italian Coast Guard told the PA news agency.
Who is still missing?
Among the missing is Mike Lynch, often dubbed the “British Bill Gates,” a tech tycoon who made headlines for selling his company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011. His daughter, Hannah Lynch, an 18-year-old who had just completed her A-Levels and was bound for Oxford, is also unaccounted for.
Other missing passengers include Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, a psychotherapist; Christopher Morvillo, a top New York City lawyer involved in Lynch’s legal defence, and his wife, Nina, who reportedly runs a luxury jewelry line.
The only confirmed fatality so far is Thomas Recaldo, a Canadian-born chef whose body was recovered shortly after the yacht went down.
The incident has also brought forth stories of survival and bravery. Charlotte Golunkski, a mother who was among the 15 survivors, managed to keep her 1-year-old daughter Sophie alive by holding her above water as they awaited rescue. Bacares, who also survived, is said to be deeply shaken by the loss of her husband and daughter.
How have rescue efforts fared so far?
The operation to locate and rescue any potential survivors has been fraught with challenges. Italian Coast Guard divers are working under difficult conditions, limited by the depth of the wreckage, which restricts them to just 12 minutes underwater at a time.
According to Italian newspaper Giornale Di Sicilia, parts of the vessel have been accessed, but the cabins, where survivors might be trapped, remain out of reach.
Rescue teams have also been employing techniques similar to those used in submarine rescues, listening for any signs of life, such as banging noises.
“This is common practice on submarines and was one of the signs the search mission for the Titan submarine was looking for after it went missing last year,” said Souppez. The harsh reality, however, is that the likelihood of finding survivors diminishes with each passing hour.
“If you heard banging from inside you’d be able to take more risks to save a life. But if all the information is pointing towards the fact actually there’s no evidence of air pockets, you’ve scoured the surface, and we think the casualties are in there, then it’d be very difficult for them justify divers entering the vessel to go and recover casualties,” Matthew Schanck, chairman of the UK’s Maritime Search and Rescue Council told Business Insider.
Zagarola noted, “We suppose that the six people missing may not have had time to get out of the boat.”
With inputs from agencies
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