THE recovery of Mike Lynch’s superyacht has been halted after a specialist diver died on the operation.
Brit tech tycoon Lynch drowned along with his daughter and five others died when the Bayesian sank in a storm off the Sicilian coast last August.
And now the boat has claimed another life – a 39-year-old specialist diver from the Netherlands working to haul the wreckage off the seabed.
David Wilson, spokesperson for TMC Marine, expressed deep sorrow confirming the tragic demise of a specialist diver during an underwater operation earlier today.
He added that authorities had opened an investigation and all parties were fully cooperating.
The local prosecutor’s office has sealed off the area around the port where the diver died.
Sea salvage experts began work in early May to refloat the ship from the seabed off the Sicilian port of Porticello.
They brought in one of the most powerful marine cranes in Europe from Rotterdam.
The initial plan involved dismantling the £14 million superyacht’s 246-foot aluminum mast, the second tallest worldwide, to facilitate raising the hull to the surface.
It was initially thought the operation would take between 20 and 25 days – but its’s now unclear when the tricky recovery could be resumed.
Dutch-based companies HEBO, a maritime services provider from Rotterdam, and SMIT Salvage led the operation, with support from Italian specialists.
The 183ft-long Bayesian sank during a powerful storm.
Experts have been stumped as to how the supposedly-unsinkable ship went down.
Prosecutors are investigating the captain and two crew members for possible responsibility in the sinking.
Among those lost in the shipwreck, alongside Lynch and his daughter Hannah, were Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, and the vessel’s cook, Recaldo Thomas.
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