Five bodies recovered from sunken superyacht off Sicily as search continues

(LONDON and ROME) — Five bodies have been recovered from the superyacht that sunk off the Sicilian coast, ABC News has confirmed, with the final missing passenger’s body also now located inside the vessel.

The fifth body had been brought to shore as of early Thursday morning. Two bodies were brought ashore on Wednesday morning, according to the Italian coast guard, while two other bodies were recovered later on Wednesday.

The body of the final missing passenger — believed to be the 18-year-old daughter of the yacht’s owner, British tech tycoon Mike Lynch — has now also been located inside the yacht, though has not yet been brought to shore.

Mike Lynch’s body is believed to have been among those already recovered from the yacht, though the identities of the dead have not been officially confirmed.

Rescue teams are facing a “very hard” operation to find those still missing after the superyacht sunk on Monday, a spokesperson for the onsite fire brigade teams told ABC News.

Luca Cari said on Wednesday that the rescue operation for the people missing from the U.K.-flagged Bayesian was ongoing. The vessel was lost early on Monday in stormy weather around half a mile from the fishing village of Porticello, close to the city of Palermo.

Fifteen people were rescued alive in the immediate aftermath while one body was previously recovered.

“For us, it remains a rescue operation,” Cari told ABC News Wednesday morning, prior to the recovery of the five bodies, when asked if emergency services were transitioning to a recovery operation.

Asked if there was any hope that the missing may be surviving thanks to air pockets inside the sunk vessel, Cari responded: “One can never exclude anything but it seems rather improbable.”

Cari said that 12 of the 18 divers leading rescue efforts on Wednesday are specialized divers who have extensive experience working inside caves.

Divers have been operating inside the yacht for two days, he added. 

“But the job is very hard because there are large obstacles and [we] have to work in very narrow spaces,” he said.

“It’s a long process and we can only operate in short spells,” Cari added. 

Divers have to be rotated constantly, with each only able to stay underwater for around 12 minutes, he said.

Two Americans — Christopher and Neda Morvillo — were among the missing, ABC News confirmed on Tuesday.

Christopher Morvillo is a partner at law firm Clifford Chance and represented Lynch in his recent fraud case brought by Hewlett Packard. He is a former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Anne Elizabeth Judith Bloomer are also among the six missing passengers.