British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch has been confirmed as one of the missing people who were aboard a luxury yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily when it was hit by a freak tornado.
Mike Lynch, often called “Britain’s Bill Gates,” was one of 22 people aboard the Bayesian, a 160-foot luxury yacht, when the vessel was struck by a freak tornado near Sicily on Monday morning.
So far, 15 people have been rescued by authorities, with one confirmed casualty, leaving two Americans, four Britons and a Canadian still missing. According to the BBC, Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was among those rescued and the yacht is linked to her. The British state news service reported that the boat was owned by a company called Revtom, which lists Bacares as its sole legal owner.
Searches for Lynch and other missing people are still underway, with divers, multiple vessels, and a helicopter surveying the area, which is about 12 miles from the city of Palermo.
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The Bayesian, worth around $18 million, has now completely sunk, and the wreck is now over 164 feet below the surface of the sea, according Italian news media.
Those who have been rescued have been taken to hospitals in the Sicilian city, including a one-year-old child who was taken to Palermo’s children’s hospital.
The 35-year-old British mother of the 1-yea- old child told ANSA: “For two seconds I lost my daughter in the sea.” She was able to find her again, and kept her safe during the storm: “I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was in a tempest. Many people screamed. Luckily the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us were able to get on board,” she said.
Who Is Mike Lynch?
Lynch is the founder of the British software company Autonomy, earning his reputation as “Britain’s Bill Gates” during the late 1990s and early 2000s as a key player in the U.K.’s data and software industry.
Lynch studied at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a degree in natural sciences and a Ph.D. in signal processing and communications. He founded Autonomy in 1996, which quickly became a leading company in the field of data analytics.
In 2011, HP acquired Autonomy for $11.7 billion, which was one of the largest acquisitions in the tech industry at the time. However, the acquisition became highly controversial, as HP later accused Lynch and others of inflating Autonomy’s financials. Lynch has consistently denied these allegations.
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