Tech Tycoon Mike Lynch and Daughter Among Missing After Luxury Yacht Sinks Off Sicilian Coast
Dubbed the 'British Bill Gates,' Lynch, 59, was recently cleared of over a dozen fraud and conspiracy charges
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Mike LynchMike Lynch, a British tech entrepreneur, and his daughter Hannah are among the missing after a luxury superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily in the wake of a major storm earlier this week, local officials confirm to PEOPLE.
Speaking with the BBC, Salvatore Cocina, the director general of Sicily's civil protection agency, said Hannah is believed to be 18.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was among those rescued, local sources say.
The Italian coast guard said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE that Bayesian, a 56-meter yacht flying the U.K. flag, sank near Poritcello around 5 a.m., local time on Monday, Aug. 19, after the "violent storm."
Fifteen people were subsequently saved (and eight were taken to area hospitals) while six — including two Americans and four British citizens — remain missing, the coast guard and local sources said.
Lynch is one of the six people from the Bayesian who disappeared, local sources tell PEOPLE. The news was previously reported by the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, among other outlets.
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At the time of the sinking, the coast guard said there were 12 passengers on board as well as a crew of 10, per the AP.
One person was found dead near the yacht. They were identified as a cook from the boat, according to local outlet Palermo Today and the BBC.
Sicily's civil protection agency did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
The incident took place months after Lynch, the founder of the U.K.-based tech company Autonomy, was acquitted on all charges that alleged he inflated his company's earnings ahead of an $11 billion deal with Hewlett-Packard, per TechCrunch and the AP.
Via a statement shared with the outlets at the time, Lynch said he was "looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.”
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In an interview with Britain’s Sunday Times published on July 27, Lynch, 59, who was described as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” said that had he been convicted, he might have died while serving his prison sentence because of his age and a major lung infection.
“I have various medical things that would have made it difficult to survive,” Lynch, a father of two children, told the paper.
Related: Family of 4 from Texas Missing After Boat Capsizes During Alaska Vacation
According to Sky News, local newspaper Giornale di Sicilia reported that witnesses to Monday's incident said the yacht was anchored in front of the Porticello port when the storm hit.
"That boat was all lit up," a man in Porticello told Giornale di Sicilia. "At about 4:30 in the morning it was gone. A beautiful boat where there had been a party. A normal day of vacation spent happily at sea turned into a tragedy.”
A spokesperson for Sicily's civil protection agency, Francesco Venuto, previously told the BBC that authorities believed the bodies of the missing must be in the yacht.
"We've been searching all day with helicopters and boats, we've found nothing,” said Venuto. “That wouldn't make sense, in this conditions we should have found something by now.”
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