--- title: "Tech Billionaire Goes Missing After Superyacht Sinks" description: "A British tech tycoon and his daughter have gone missing after the luxury yacht they were vacationing upon sank off the coast of Sicily." date: "2024-08-20" modified: "2024-08-20" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/tech-billionaire-superyacht-sinks-missing" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "disasters" - "sailing" - "superyacht" - "the digest" --- # Tech Billionaire Goes Missing After Superyacht Sinks ![A British tech tycoon and his daughter have gone missing after the luxury yacht they were vacationing upon sank off the coast of Sicily.]() *\Image: John Phillips / Getty Images for TechCrunch\* ## Fatal Premonition A British tech tycoon and his 18-year-old daughter have gone missing after the superyacht they were vacationing upon sank off the coast of Sicily. As the [*BBC* reports](), Autonomy and Invoke Capital founder Mike Lynch and his daughter are two of the six people missing after the Bayesian, the [183-foot-long luxury yacht]() on which they were sailing, sunk early in the morning on Monday after being struck by a tornado east of the port town of Palermo. Considered "[Britain's Bill Gates]()," the 59-year-old tech tycoon became a billionaire after [selling his enterprise software firm]() Autonomy to Hewlett Packard in 2011. As [*The Guardian* notes](), Lynch was under federal fraud investigation in the United States for that sale until June of this year, when he was acquitted on all counts. Prior to his disappearance, Lynch said that he believed that if he went to prison over the fraud charges, he would likely have died there due to a lung condition he suffers from. "I have various medical things that would have made it very difficult to survive," he told [the *Guardian* last month](). "If this had gone the wrong way, it would have been the end of life as I have known it in any sense." ## Death Spout Witnesses to the tragedy told the Italian news agency *Ansa*, per the *BBC*, that the force of the waterspout — a tornado that occurs over water, basically — caused the ship's aluminum mast to snap in half, causing the craft to become unstable and eventually sink. Of the 22 people on board the Bayesian, 15 people — including an infant girl and Lynch's wife Angela Bacares — have been rescued. One person, whose identity has not been revealed, has been found dead, and three other people whose names have not been revealed are also missing. As [*CNN* notes]() in its reporting on the luxury vacation gone horribly wrong, Bacares, the one-year-old girl, and six other people were hospitalized. The person who died was apparently found on the ship's hull, per an Italian Coast Guard statement provided to *CNN.* Salvo Cocina, who leads Italy's civil protection agency, noted in a media conference quoted [by *ABC*]() that another superyacht in the vicinity suffered far less damage than the Bayesian. "They were in the wrong place at the wrong time," Cocina said. He also noted, per *ABC*, that the other nearby yacht, the Sir Robert Baden Powell, helped rescue Lynch's wife and the 14 others who were saved from the disaster. **More on maritime terror:** [*Man Rowing Across Ocean Suddenly Realizes He's Surrounded by Over 1,000 Whales*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()