Aug. 22 (UPI) — British tech-billionaire Mike Lynch was confirmed by the Italian coast guard on Thursday as being one of five bodies pulled from the wreck of the superyacht Bayesian three days after it went down in a storm off the coast of Sicily with only his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, remaining missing.
The others who have been identified after being recovered by specialist divers Wednesday are Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judith Bloomer, Lynch’s American lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillio.
The body of the fifth victim, said to be the 59-year-old Lynch, was brought ashore on board a fire service boat to nearby Porticello at around 8:45 a.m. local time.
Together with the Bayesian’s chef, Antigua-based Canadian national Recaldo Thomas, whose body was pulled from the water Monday, it brings to six the number of confirmed deceased.
The coast guard said the remaining missing person was a woman — presumed to be Hannah Lynch.
An Italian fire service spokesman said the search was continuing but that it was impossible for emergency workers to know if and when another body would be found.
“We would need a crystal ball to know when we’ll be able to find the next body,” said Luca Cari, spokesperson for the fire rescue service.
“It’s very difficult to move inside the wreckage. Moving just one metre can take up to 24 hours,” he said.
Hannah, a former honor student at London’s prestigious Latymer Upper School, was due to take up a place at Oxford University in the fall.
Tributes for Mike Lynch, co-founder of software firms Autonomy and Darktrace and founder of the tech venture capital firm Invoke Capital, poured in Thursday from friends and from across the tech, business and professional worlds.
He was lauded as a cheerleader for Britain’s tech sector who put his money where his mouth was.
Offering his condolences in a post on X, former BP CEO Lord John Browne of Madingley, lauded what he said was Lynch’s global contribution to science and technology.
“Mike Lynch should be remembered as the person who catalyzed a breed of deep tech entrepreneurs in the U.K. His ideas and his personal vision were a powerful contribution to science and technology in both Britain and globally,” wrote Browne who now heads up the BeyondNetZero Fund. “We have lost a human being of great ability.”
The Royal Academy of Engineering in London said it held fond memories of him as a “mentor, donor and former council member.”
“The trustee board, fellows and staff of the Royal Academy of Engineering are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Mike Lynch, and send our profound condolences to his family,” the academy said in a post on X.
“Mike became a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008 and we have fond memories of the active role he played in the past as a mentor, donor and former council member.”
Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates founder, Russ Shaw, told CNBC Lynch left “a legacy as one of the great modern British tech entrepreneurs.”
“His ability to understand how tech can solve big challenges, and then successfully commercialize it was truly unique,” Shaw said.
Friend, Brent Hoberman, called Lynch an inspirational figure in the tech world whose passing was “unbelievably tragic” but whose achievement should never be forgotten.
“We were all hoping for a miracle — we knew it was unlikely but you still hold out hope,” he told Sky News.
“It’s just so unbelievably tragic for him to go through what he went through over the last 12 years, defending his name and not really living a full life, to now for his death to be confirmed is obviously incredibly sad.”
Lynch, his wife Angela Bacares, daughter Hannah and 19 guests were on the Bayesian for a “victory” trip celebrating Lynch clearing his name after a lengthy legal battle that saw him extradited to the United States last year to stand trial on fraud charges related to the $11 billion sale of Autonomy, to Hewlett Packard.
After HP took an $8.8 billion haircut on the value of the company within a year, Lynch was accused of conspiring to inflate its value and wire fraud but after a trial lasting three months a jury in a federal court in San Francisco acquitted him and co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain in June of all 15 counts.
It emerged Monday that former Autonomy Vice President Chamberlain was killed two days before Lynch.
The 52-year-old died in a road accident while out running in Stretham, 76 miles northeast of London, in rural Cambridgeshire.
