Sicily. Businessman Mike Lynch wanted after yacht sinks. His colleague “fatally hit”

One person died and six were missing when a 56-metre luxury sailing yacht called Bayesian sank in bad weather off the coast of Sicily. The British-flagged vessel had 22 people on board – 12 passengers and 10 crew – when it was hit by a severe storm creating waterspouts early on Monday morning, the BBC reported. The captain of a nearby boat said he turned on the engine when it came and tried to keep control of the vessel to avoid a collision with the yacht, which eventually sank. “We managed to stay in place and after the storm had passed we noticed that the ship behind us was gone,” Karsten Borner told reporters.

SEE ALSO: “We noticed that the ship behind us was no longer there.” Among the missing was a well-known businessman

The disaster left one person dead and six missing. Among them was British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, dubbed the “British Bill Gates” by the British media. Lynch's 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, is also missing. Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, is among those rescued.

Mike Lynch is a well-known entrepreneur in the UK. In 1996, he founded the software giant Autonomy. In 2006, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire. In 2011, he sold the company to the computer giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11 billion. However, the Americans decided after the transaction that its value was overstated.

Lynch was prosecuted in the US and the UK over the sale of Autonomy. He faced up to 20 years in prison for fraud in the US, and last year a decision was made to extradite him to the USA. In June of this year, however, he was acquitted and cleared of the charges.

In the trial following the sale of Autonomy, Lynch was in the same dock as his associate, the company's vice president of finance, Stephen Chamberlain. On Monday, the day of the yacht disaster and Lynch's disappearance, Chamberlain's lawyer said his client had been “fatally struck” by a car while jogging. The accident allegedly occurred in the English county of Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning. Chamberlain was taken to hospital, where he was put on life support, a person familiar with the case told Reuters on Monday. However, it was confirmed on Monday that he was dead.

After leaving Autonomy, Chamberlain worked as chief operating officer for a cybersecurity company and was also the chief financial officer of Cambridge United Football Club, according to his LinkedIn profile.