cruise passenger disappears

‘My brother didn't just vanish': Family frustrated after Carnival Cruise passenger disappears

Kevin mcgrath has been missing since monday. carnival officials said he wasn't seen in surveillance footage., by kim wynne • published september 6, 2023 • updated on september 7, 2023 at 12:37 pm.

Danielle McGrath says the past few days have been unnerving for her and her family.

“All of our emotions are up and down right now,” McGrath said. “All of us.”

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Her brother, 26-year-old Kevin McGrath, a father of two, has been missing since Monday. He was last seen in his cabin around 7 a.m. Monday morning on a Carnival cruise ship heading back to Port Miami. The trip was a birthday celebration for their father.

“The whole point of the cruise was to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday, and it was a big group of about 40 people,” she said.

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McGrath said later Monday morning — as the cruise was ending and passengers were disembarking — the family gathered for breakfast, but Kevin never showed up.

“When it’s time to meet up for breakfast, no one can find him,” she said.

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Family members searched all over the cruise ship.

“He wasn’t in the room,” McGrath said. “No one could find him. No one.”

Once they reported him missing, the U.S. Coast Guard was contacted and searched the water by helicopter. Miami-Dade Police are also investigating but have no leads.

“The guest was not detected by surveillance systems, including U.S. Customs and Border Patrol during the debarkation process," a Carnival spokesperson said in part in a statement to NBC6. "Miami-Dade Police eventually cleared the ship to sail. The Carnival Care Team is supporting the guest’s family.”

The Coast Guard announced Thursday that they were suspending their search for McGrath.

“My jaw just dropped,” said friend Mitchell Branch. “I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say.”

Branch said he and Kevin served in the U.S. Army together.

“We were in the same unit, same battalion, same company,” he said.

He and other family members say Kevin would never disappear and was always in good spirits.

“He’s always the light of the room,” Branch said.

“He has this huge personality that will definitely stick out in any room,” McGrath said. “He’s very straightforward, goofy, he’s funny.”

McGrath is urging other passengers who may have seen him that morning to speak up.

“My brother didn’t just vanish,” McGrath said. “Someone knows something. Someone’s seen something. I just want my brother home. My family wants my brother home. Just please, we need him home.”

Family members say Kevin was last seen wearing a black t-shirt, black shorts, and gray sneakers.

Anyone with information should call Miami-Dade Police at 305-715-3300.

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Carnival cruise passenger vanishes after ship docks in Florida

September 6, 2023 / 8:39 AM EDT / CBS News

A man has been missing for over two days after disappearing from a docked Carnival cruise ship in Miami, officials and the cruise line said. 

According to a missing persons poster released by the Miami-Dade Police Department, 26-year-old Kevin McGrath was last seen on board the Carnival cruise ship Conquest early Monday morning. McGrath was reported missing by a family member, Carnival said in a statement to CBS News. 

Police said he was last seen in his cabin aboard the ship at around 2 a.m. local time on Sept. 4. Carnival said that McGrath was "last seen in his cabin at approximately 7 a.m. according to his cabinmate."

That was around the time guests were leaving the ship, the cruise line said. An "extensive search" did not find McGrath on board. 

The U.S. Coast Guard used a helicopter to search the "water in the general vicinity," the cruise line said, and Miami-Dade police officers boarded the ship to investigate and search. McGrath was "not detected by surveillance systems, including U.S. Customs and Border Patrol during the debarkation process," Carnival said. The ship was later cleared to sail on by police. 

McGrath, a Black man with brown eyes and brown hair, was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, black shorts and gray sneakers, police said. 

🚨 #MISSING : Kevin McGrath, 26 years old, was last seen in the area of Port of Miami 1015 North America Way. The missing person may be in need of services. Anyone with information is urged to contact @CrimeStopper305 at (305) 471-8477 or by dialing **TIPS. pic.twitter.com/pmAAMpgSgM — Miami-Dade Police (@MiamiDadePD) September 5, 2023

Police said McGrath "may be in need of services." 

The cruise line said they were in contact with McGrath's family through their Carnival Care Team.

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Carnival Cruise passenger reported missing after ship returns to Florida

Kevin McGrath was last seen in his cabin before returning to port.

A guest aboard a Carnival cruise ship was reported missing by family Monday morning, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department.

Kevin McGrath, 26, was on the Carnival Conquest with family and was last seen by his brother in his cabin early Monday, the day the ship arrived back to Port Miami, according to a spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Line.

McGrath was supposed to meet with family for breakfast before disembarking the ship, but he never arrived, Miami-Dade Detective Angel Rodriguez said in a statement.

After an extensive search, Carnival crew members were unable to find McGrath on the ship. The U.S. Coast Guard and the Miami-Dade Police Department were later called to investigate and searched the ship and the water for the missing man but failed to locate him.

MORE: Coast Guard searching for cruise passenger who jumped overboard off Florida coast

Surveillance systems and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol did not find McGrath once passengers were disembarking the ship, Carnival said. Miami-Dade authorities also checked security cameras, none of which indicated that he may have gone overboard, Rodriguez said.

McGrath's whereabouts are still unknown.

McGrath is 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds and was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, black shorts and gray sneakers.

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Royal caribbean cruise ship passenger missing after going overboard on trip to the bahamas.

A 41-year-old man is missing after he went overboard over the weekend on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship to the Bahamas, officials said.

The Coast Guard received a call at 7:17 p.m. Sunday about the passenger, who fell off the vessel around 127 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina, Petty Officer Vincent Moreno told the Post and Courier .

“A guest went overboard from Vision of the Seas. The ship and crew immediately reported the incident to local authorities and launched a search and rescue mission,” a company rep told The Post in an email.

“Out of privacy for the guest and their family, we have no additional details to share,” the statement added Monday.

The Coast Guard deployed a C-130 Hercules plane from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and another C-130 crew responded from Clearwater, Florida, to relieve the first.

But on Monday morning, the agency announced it had suspended the search after scouring more than 1,625 square miles for eight hours, WCBD reported .

The missing man was aboard Royal Caribbean’s “8 Night Bahamas & Perfect Day Holiday Cruise,” which left from Baltimore on Friday, passengers told the Post and Courier.

Jake Utzinger, a 21-year-old film student from New Jersey who was vacationing with his girlfriend’s family, said he was lying in bed around 7:45 p.m. when the captain announced that a passenger had fallen overboard. “I instantly felt sick to my stomach knowing that one of our fellow travelers had been lost at sea,” Utzinger told the paper.

He said he, his girlfriend and other passengers rushed to the pool deck to provide “extra pairs of eyes” in the search-and-rescue effort.

Another passenger, Colin Schappi, told WCBD that he heard the announcement “Oscar! Oscar! Oscar! Starboard!” — a call to the crew signifying an overboard emergency on the right side of the ship — about 7:15 p.m.

“We were wondering what was going on with that,” he said.

Crews stopped the ship, dropped a strobe lamp, and searched for the passenger for six hours before resuming the trip around 2 a.m. “It’s definitely going to be rough continuing this voyage knowing that a family is missing their loved one,” Utzinger told the news outlet.

The Vision of the Seas’ next stop is Port Canaveral, Florida, after which it will sail throughout the Bahamas before returning to Baltimore on Saturday.

The 915-foot-long ship, which has a total capacity of 2,000 guests and 700 crew members, made its first voyage in 1988, according to the Royal Caribbean website.

In August, a Royal Caribbean passenger went overboard from the Wonder of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, while it was off the coast of Cuba during a voyage from Florida.

The passenger was identified as 19-year-old Sigmund Ropich, a college student from Washington state known to his loved ones as “Boiboi.” He had been vacationing with friends at the time.

Earlier that month, an  Indian woman died  after she apparently jumped off the company’s Spectrum of the Seas.

Reeta Sahani, 64, was reported missing after her husband, Jakesh Sahani, 70, woke up in the middle of the night and noticed she was not in their cabin.  

In June, a 42-year-old woman was rescued after she fell off Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas about 25 miles south of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic during its voyage from Florida.

Other recent incidents occurred on the cruise ships Carnival Magic, Carnival Elation and Emerald Princess. 

On average, 19 people go overboard on cruise ships every year — and of those, only about four are rescued, according to a 2020 study commissioned by the industry trade group Cruise Lines International Association.

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Missing Carnival cruise passenger's last known whereabouts revealed as search intensifies off Florida coast

A cruise spokesperson said the man wasn't seen by u.s. customs and border patrol during the debarkation process.

Passenger details nightmare on cruise ship: 'We felt trapped'

Kathleen Meenan, a passenger on Carnival Sunshine, shares how the ship was battered by 80 mph winds and rough waters on 'America Reports.'

Officials are searching for a Carnival cruise passenger who went missing as the ship arrived in Miami on Monday morning. 

Kevin McGrath, 26, was last seen at his stateroom early Monday morning on the Carnival Conquest, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department. He was last seen in the area of PortMiami, police said.

A spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Line told Fox News Digital that the passenger's cabin mate last saw the man at 7:00 a.m., which is around the time that debarkation was beginning.

Cruise employees performed an "extensive" search of the ship, but the spokesperson said the 26-year-old wasn't found.

AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENT IDENTIFIED AS PASSENGER WHO WENT OVERBOARD FROM WORLD'S LARGEST CRUISE SHIP

Officials are searching for a Carnival Cruise passenger who went missing as the ship arrived in Miami on Monday morning.  (Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images/Miami-Dade Police)

McGrath wasn't detected by the ship's surveillance systems and wasn't seen by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol during the cruise's debarkation process.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard told Fox News Digital it is "actively searching" near PortMiami and along the South Florida shore for McGrath, but his whereabouts are still unknown.

SEARCH UNDERWAY AFTER PASSENGER ON WORLD'S LARGEST CRUISE SHIP GOES OVERBOARD

McGrath wasn't detected by the ship's surveillance systems, and wasn't seen by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol during the cruise's debarkation process. (Miami-Dade Police Department)

A Carnival Cruise spokesperson said the Coast Guard performed a helicopter search.

Angel Rodriguez, a detective with the Miami-Dade Police Department told Fox News Digital that McGrath was supposed to meet the family for breakfast before leaving the cruise but never arrived.

The detective also said that the ship’s cameras and security devices don't indicate he went overboard.

Key West Florida USA cruise ship Carnival Conquest at dock Mallory Square.  (Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

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The ship was eventually cleared to sail by Miami-Dade police .

McGrath was on a two-night cruise to Bimini, Bahamas.

Adam Sabes is a writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter @asabes10.

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Search for man who fell off Carnival cruise ship near Florida is suspended

The Coast Guard on Wednesday night suspended the search for a cruise ship passenger who is believed to have fallen into the sea east of Florida on Monday morning, officials said.

Ronnie Peale, 35, was identified as the passenger who fell about 4 a.m. as the Carnival Magic cruise ship was around 180 miles east of Jacksonville.

“The decision to suspend the active search efforts pending further development is never one we take lightly. We offer our most sincere condolences to Mr. Peale’s family and friends," Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Hooper said in a statement .

The Coast Guard said it was notified around 6:30 p.m. Monday that a passenger had fallen. The search involved HC-130 Hercules airplanes, a HC-144 plane and a cutter, which is a ship.

More than 5,171 square miles were searched, the Coast Guard said.

The Carnival Magic is around 1,000 feet long and has a capacity of almost 3,700 passengers, in addition to around 1,300 crew members, according to the cruise company. It had been scheduled to arrive Tuesday in Norfolk, Virginia.

Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.

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Man Who Disappeared from Carnival Cruise Ship 'Jumped' Overboard, Officials Say

Security footage from the Carnival Glory showed Tyler Barnett “jumping off the cruise ship,” according to an update from the Coast Guard

Abigail Adams is a Human Interest Writer and Reporter for PEOPLE. She has been working in journalism for seven years.

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Authorities say the man who recently disappeared from a Carnival cruise ship appeared to have jumped overboard.

Security footage from the Carnival Glory “shows the man jumping off the cruise ship ,” according to a Tuesday night update from the Coast Guard.

The agency has officially identified the missing man as Tyler Barnett of Houma, Louisiana.

A Carnival spokesperson tells PEOPLE that footage appeared to show Barnett jumping from the ship’s Deck 4 around 1:40 a.m. local time on Monday.

“He can be seen climbing on a lifeboat and jumping from there,” the spokesperson said.

Barnett’s mother Elisha Reid told Business Insider that her daughter was previously informed that there was no footage of what happened.

In Carnival's statement to PEOPLE, a spokesperson said that on Tuesday, they were "advised of the possibility of him wearing a different shirt, which allowed our security team to change the profile of the guest as we searched onboard video."

"We have informed the U.S. Coast Guard and are providing assistance to the guest’s family that was traveling with him," they added.

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Family members previously said Barnett’s passenger card was swiped at the ship’s casino at 12:15 a.m., and his room just before 12:30 a.m., according to CBS affiliate WWL-TV . Carnival crew members began searching for Barnett around 7:30 a.m.

The Coast Guard said watchstanders with its New Orleans sector were alerted to the incident just after 12:30 p.m. on Monday.

So far, crews have searched more than 200 miles of water for the missing passenger, according to the agency. But adverse weather conditions have hampered the search.

"I just want answers, and I'm holding out for hope," Barnett's grandmother Dirlean Tate Mason told NBC News in a story published on Tuesday.

The Coast Guard has since narrowed its search area roughly 30 miles southwest of the Southwest Pass. 

Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise Line said its Care Team “is supporting the missing guest's family on board” the ship, which "arrived today to Montego Bay, Jamaica as planned."

On Facebook, Mason said she and her family are in need of prayers as they await answers. “We are holding on to hope and prayer that he will be found safe,” she wrote. "Our hearts are breaking."

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Missing Carnival cruise ship passenger seen jumping overboard, company says; family mystified

Tyler barnett of louisiana last seen aboard carnival glory early monday morning.

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The Carnival cruise passenger for whom the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has been searching appears to have jumped overboard from the ship's Deck 4 at 1:40 a.m. Monday, the company said.

"New security footage discovered by Carnival Glory shows the man jumping off the cruise ship," the Coast Guard posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday night.

The search for 28-year-old Tyler Barnett of Houma, Louisiana, resumed Wednesday morning after being paused due to severe weather conditions and safety concerns.

"In the video we showed to his family, he can be seen intentionally opening a gate, walking into a restricted area, and jumping from a lifeboat," a Carnival spokesperson told FOX Business in a statement.

CARNIVAL GLORY CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER VANISHES; COAST GUARD SEARCHING GULF OF MEXICO

Tyler Barnett, 28, was identified as the passenger who went missing aboard the Carnival Glory cruise ship. (Tyler Barnett / Facebook)

Barnett was reported missing by a family member on the ship Monday, a day after the Carnival Glory departed New Orleans for a weeklong journey, Carnival Cruise Line told FOX Business. His family has been asking for prayers in posts on social media.

NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE SCRAPPING ISRAEL VOYAGES IN 2024 DUE TO WAR WITH HAMAS

The Carnival Glory departed New Orleans on Sunday. (Gerard Bottino / SOPA Images / LightRocket / File / Getty Images)

After the ship’s team was unable to find the passenger aboard the cruise liner, Coast Guard Sector New Orleans launched an HC-144 aircraft from Mobile, Alabama, and a C-130 aircraft from St. Petersburg, Florida, to conduct searches into the evening, USCG Heartland said.

The search area is roughly 200 miles.

The Carnival Glory continued on its journey, porting in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on Wednesday before heading for Grand Cayman Island for a stop Thursday, according to CruiseMapper.

Barnett's sister, Destiny Barnett, who was also on the ship, told NBC News, "It makes you feel crazy to be stuck on a ship where everyone else is having a good time. It was supposed to be a vacation, but for us, it's hell."

His grandmother, Dirlean Tate Mason, wrote on Facebook that "we are holding on to hope and prayer that he will be found safe."

"Our hearts are breaking," Mason wrote. "I can't believe this is happening."

The final port scheduled for the cruise is in Cozumel, Mexico, before returning to New Orleans .

The Carnival Glory. (Rhona Wise / AFP / File / Getty Images)

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On Tuesday, USCG Heartland told FOX Business the ship did not have footage or evidence that showed Barnett went overboard; however, he was not located on the vessel.

"Only on Tuesday were we advised of the possibility of him wearing a different shirt, which allowed our security team to change the profile of the guest as we searched onboard video," the Carnival spokesperson said. "We have informed the U.S. Coast Guard and are providing assistance to the guest’s family that was traveling with him."

"Our thoughts remain with the guest’s family for their loss," the spokesperson said.

FOX Business' Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.

A Carnival cruise passenger on a Bahamas vacation is missing after he leaned over his balcony and fell overboard, officials said

• A man is still missing after he went overboard on a Carnival cruise ship on Monday.
• Officials said the passenger leaned over a balcony railing and plunged into the water.
• The unidentified 35-year-old man was aboard the Carnival Magic cruise ship.

A man went overboard on a Carnival cruise ship returning to Virginia from the Bahamas — and he remains missing after officials said he leaned over a balcony railing and plunged into the water.

The United States Coast Guard said in a tweet on Tuesday that crews were searching for a 35-year-old man who fell off the Carnival Magic ship about 186 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida, on Monday.

"The Coast Guard is utilizing both air and water assets to conduct the search," the military branch said.

—USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) May 30, 2023

The cruise ship's operator, Carnival Cruise Line, told Insider in a statement that the man — whose identity was not immediately released — was reported missing by his companion late Monday afternoon.

The cruise line added, "an initial review of closed circuit security footage confirms that he leaned over the railing of his stateroom balcony and dropped into the water at approximately 4:10 am early Monday morning."

"The US Coast Guard has released the ship from any search and rescue efforts and advised the ship's captain to continue on its way to Norfolk, where it will arrive as planned on Tuesday. The Carnival Care Team is providing support to the guest's companion and traveling party who are on board," the statement continued.

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The Carnival Magic ship departed from Norfolk, Virginia, on Thursday and returned to Norfolk on Tuesday, WTKR reported .

Statistically, the odds of falling off a cruise ship are small. A total of 212 overboard incidents were reported on cruise ships from 2009 to 2019, according to a report commissioned by the industry-trade group Cruise Lines International Association. Out of those, 48 people — about 28% — were successfully rescued.

Under the 2010 Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, cruise ships must have 42-inch guard rails and man-overboard imaging or detection systems. However, not all cruise ships have implemented recently developed automatic man-overboard-detection technology , which uses thermal cameras and radars to immediately alert crew members when a person goes overboard.

The time between someone going overboard and the cruise ship initiating a search-and-rescue mission can be the difference between life and death, as highlighted by the unlikely survival of James Michael Grimes, a Carnival passenger who was stranded at sea for 20 hours after falling overboard last year.

Have a tip or story to share about man-overboard incidents on cruise ships? Email this reporter at [email protected]

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Experts puzzle over why Bayesian yacht sank. Was it a 'black swan event'?

The Bayesian set off on a leisurely cruise around Italy's southern coast on a sunny day in late July.

The luxurious super yacht − which boasted one of the largest masts in the world and carried a crew of business moguls, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his family and a chair of Morgan Stanley − set sail from the Amalfi Coast, bound for Sicily.

Less than a month later, the ship had sunk 160 feet under the water , leaving its cook dead and six of its passengers, including at least two Americans, missing and prompting a massive search that has drawn international attention.

Now, experts are trying to piece together why in the early hours Monday the Bayesian was quickly pulled under the waves amid a storm that saw at least one tornado spin up over the water.

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A perfect storm led to Bayesian sinking, experts say

The combination of unlikely factors that could have contributed to the ship's fate constituted a "black swan event," Matthew Schanck, chairman of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, told USA TODAY.

The Bayesian was well-built: A 2008 product of Italian ship maker Perini, it was constructed in accordance with international maritime standards and commercially certified by the U.K.'s Maritime and Coastguard Agency, according to Schanck.

The bout of bad weather that swept the area when the ship went down was also out of the ordinary in the northern Mediterranean, "which isn't renowned for prolonged, significant stormy weather," he said.

"The fact that those two elements have then resulted in the foundering of a super yacht is pretty extraordinary," Schanck said. "These things don't happen every day."

After the ship sank just before 5 a.m. local time, 15 people, including a 1-year-old, were pulled from the water. Some were rescued from a life raft by the crew of a ship docked nearby.

Ricardo Thomas, the ship's cook and a native of Antigua, was found dead, according to authorities.

As of Tuesday, six people were missing, including Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter. Several missing passengers were involved in Lynch's trial on fraud charges, including Jonathan Bloomer, a Morgan Stanley chair who served as his character witness, and one of Lynch's attorneys. Lynch, accused of fraud after he sold his company to electronics giant Hewlett-Packard, was acquitted of all charges weeks ago.

Who is Mike Lynch? UK entrepreneur among those missing after superyacht sinks off Sicily

Tornado formed over unusually hot water

Storms in the area that night may have whipped up a water spout, a tornado over the water , according to local meteorologists.

It was likely triggered by the water's unusual warmth, said Rick Shema, a certified consulting meteorologist who served in the Navy.

"The water spout was an uncommon occurrence," he said. "But again, these things happen, especially in warmer water."

At 83.7 degrees, water in the area was more than 3 degrees hotter than average on the day the Bayesian sank, likely the result of climate change, Shema said.

"Hurricanes can form at 80 degrees. This was almost four degrees higher than that," he said.

The water spout may have spun up when cooler air dropped from mountainous places nearby onto the hot water, he said. "A water spout is a vortex, basically like a tornado, spinning real fast, sucking up water and moisture as the column rises," he said.

Although water spouts only reach around 120 mph, as compared with tornadoes on land, which can reach up to 300 mph, "you don't need 200 mph to sink a ship," he said.

"Even an average tornado, 120 miles an hour, that's a lot of wind," he said, "which would heel the boat over for sure."

Water spouts spring up suddenly, Shema said. Before they strike, winds can be slow, but "once the water spout comes over, bam, it's on," he said.

Before sunrise, the ship's crew may not have seen the water spout coming. "The visibility was probably a big factor," he said.

With the windows of the yacht opened, as they likely were in the hot weather, the water spout could have triggered water that flooded through the portholes, Shema said, causing the ship to sink.

Tragedy strikes: Scramble to find survivors after Bayesian yacht sinks off Sicily coast

Search continues, but shift to recovery phase approaches

Italian authorities said the Bayesian was probably at anchor when the storm struck, meaning it couldn't maneuver and ride the waves, according to Mitchell Stoller, a captain and maritime expert witness. Other ships in the area that turned on their engines rode out the storm, he said.

"When you're at anchor and you see weather, you start your engine and you put the wind on the bow. You don't let it get on the side," he said.

Schanck said another key question concerns the position of the keel, a heavy weight underneath the boat that acts as a counterbalance to keep it upright, when the ship sank. When lifted, "that's going to affect the stability of the vessel, because, obviously, you've now raised the center of gravity of that vessel," he said.

The Bayesian was floating over 160 feet of water at the time, deep enough that the keel would likely be deployed. But the fact that "the vessel heeled over so heavily makes me question that," Schanck said.

The cause of the disaster may not be known until the ship can be examined in more detail, experts say. Prosecutors in a nearby town have already opened an investigation.

Schanck said investigators will have plenty to work with once the operation moves into a recovery phase.

"The vessel is intact and in good condition on the seabed," he said. "There's a lot of eyewitness accounts from other vessels in the area and the shore."

As the search entered its second day on Tuesday, the rescue effort may shift in that direction soon. "I suspect, later on, today or tomorrow, we'll probably see some mention of a recovery operation being stated," Schanck said.

The decision to would depend on whether rescuers find signs of life in the ship and air pockets or survivable spaces, Schanck said. At this point, survivors on the water's surface looks unlikely. "My professional opinion is that the casualties will be located within the vessel," he said.

"There is a risk versus benefit in all maritime search and rescue incidents," he said. "Where we start transitioning to a recovery phase, that line shifts."

Contributing: Reuters

Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Reach her on email at [email protected]. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.

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Search Resumes for British Mogul and 5 Others After Yacht Sinks Off Sicily

The body of the vessel’s cook was recovered while divers searched the hull of the Bayesian for passengers, including the tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch.

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By Elisabetta Povoledo

Deep-sea divers with Italy’s firefighter corps resumed their search on Tuesday for six missing passengers — including a British software mogul and his daughter — of a yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily the previous day.

Twenty-two people were on board the 180-foot British-flagged sailing yacht, the Bayesian, which was anchored near the port of Porticello, when it was hit by what witnesses described as a waterspout, a small tornado on water, during a sudden and violent storm.

Fifteen people who managed to get to a raft were rescued by the captain of a nearby sailing cruise ship. The body of the yacht’s cook, identified by news outlets as Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan, was recovered on Monday. But several people are still unaccounted for, according to Salvatore Cocina, an official with Sicily’s civil protection agency.

Those still missing are Mike Lynch, a British technology entrepreneur; his daughter Hannah; Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Christopher J. Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.

Mr. Lynch was acquitted of fraud in a U.S. trial in June, ending a high-profile, decadelong legal battle against accusations that he had defrauded Hewlett-Packard when he sold his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett for $11 billion.

Mr. Lynch and the others went missing days after Mr. Lynch’s co-defendant at the fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, a former vice president of finance at Autonomy, was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out for a run, his lawyer, Gary S. Lincenberg, said in a statement.

Prosecutors in the Italian city of Termini Imerese, east of where the yacht sank, are opening a formal investigation into the yacht’s sinking. Reached by telephone, the chief prosecutor declined to comment.

The search for the missing passengers began on Monday but was suspended late that night as crews found themselves limited to the bridge deck and items like furnishings “obstructing passage,” the firefighters’ corps wrote on social media .

When divers resumed the search on Tuesday, ships trawled the waters near the site, the corps said in a statement. The Italian Coast Guard also said in a statement that search operations were “continuing unabated,” with the deployment of helicopters. There was no evidence that gasoline was leaking from the yacht, the Coast Guard said.

The yacht was lying on its right side in about 165 feet of water, meaning that divers, working in pairs, could stay underwater for only about 12 minutes at a time, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for the firefighters’ corps.

Divers were seeking a safe point of access to the vessel’s cabins. “Obviously, everything fell and the space is very tight,” Mr. Cari said, adding that the divers were having to remove obstacles, like furnishings and electrical wiring, that were “completely blocking passages.”

The firefighters’ corps said in a statement that it was impossible to verify whether people were inside the hull.

Mr. Cari said that several divers had been part of the search-and-rescue operations when the Costa Concordia, a cruise liner, capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio in 2012, killing 32 people. It is considered one of the worst maritime disasters in modern Italian history.

“It’s like the Costa Concordia, but much smaller,” Mr. Cari said in a telephone interview, comparing the search operations. “In the Costa Concordia, we came across many obstacles but we somehow were able to overcome them. Here, the obstacles block the passages and have to be removed.” He added, “This makes it more difficult.”

Crews were also trying to raise the yacht, which experts will examine to try to determine why it sank. Until then, experts can only hypothesize what happened.

Karsten Borner, the captain of a ship, the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which picked up the Bayesian’s 15 survivors, said in an interview that when the wind picked up around 4 a.m. Monday, the Bayesian was about 490 feet behind his vessel. Once the wind wound down, he said, he could not see the yacht anymore.

“My theory was that she was capsized first and then went down over the stern,” Mr. Borner said.

Dario Boote, a ship structures and naval architecture professor at the University of Genoa, said: “Now I imagine that a whole series of lawsuits will be triggered, obviously to ascertain whether there is any responsibility, as always happens very unpleasantly in these situations.” He said, however, that in this case, responsibility might be hard to determine. “Clearly, only once the wreck is raised will we know more,” he added.

Several fishermen told Italian news outlets that they had witnessed a waterspout. Peter Inness, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, said they were relatively common in the Mediterranean, though their occurrence and intensity are unpredictable.

“Until one actually forms, you can’t start telling people where it is,” Mr. Inness said, or “how to get out of the way.”

The inclement weather — with lightning intermittently streaking through the sky — made it hard to know exactly why the yacht sank. Col. Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said the agency had registered intense lightning activity and strong gusts of wind in the area at the time the boat sank.

The Bayesian had one of the tallest aluminum masts in the world, according to its builder, Perini Navi. “Having a tall aluminum mast would not make it the safest port to be in case of a storm,” said Andrea Ratti, associate professor of nautical design and architecture technology the Politecnico di Milano. The type of intensity unleashed by a violent lightning storm “could have created a significant shock wave,” he added.

He, too, cautioned that “a lot of questions will remain until we have other elements at our disposal.”

Modern yachts are built to withstand meteorological events of reasonable intensity, and all international naval registers suggest that new ships be designed for higher waves and more frequent and extreme weather events.

But “this seems a case of an unreasonable extreme event,” said Emilio Fortunato Campana, an expert in Naval Hydrodynamics at Italy’s National Research Council. “In that case, no ship is 100 percent safe,” he added. “I think the Titanic showed that nothing is unsinkable.”

Elisabetta Povoledo is a reporter based in Rome, covering Italy, the Vatican and the culture of the region. She has been a journalist for 35 years. More about Elisabetta Povoledo

NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Passengers on around-the-world cruise still haven’t moved in three months

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Passengers on a round-the-world cruise have been making the most of a bad situation after their ship has been stuck in Belfast for three months.

Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey was supposed to set sail on the first leg of a three-year cruise on May 30 – but problems with the ship’s rudders and gear box mean it’s yet to leave Northern Ireland .

Passengers on the cruise, some of whom have booked cabins for years at a time, have been forced to make Belfast their home while they wait for the ship to be repaired.

While they’re allowed to spend time on the ship during the day, they must disembark during the evenings, with shuttle buses put on to take them to hotels or other accommodations.

This is because many passengers pay for their cabin with a daily rate, similar to a traditional hotel, rather than buying the cabin outright.

Holly Hennessey, originally from Florida in the US, has made the Odyssey her home alongside her pet cat, Captain.

She told the BBC: ‘We can spend all day aboard the ship, and they provide shuttle buses to get on and off.

‘We can have all of our meals and they even have movies and trivia entertainment, almost like cruising except we’re at the dock.

‘I want to stay just as long as I am able. I have always wanted to live on a ship, and it will be a dream come true for me.’

Villa Vie Residences charge anywhere between $99,999 and $899,000 (£75,000-£680,000 to buy a cabin.

They say they’re doing everything they can to ‘relieve the anxiety’ of passengers by planning trips or other cruises, or putting them up in hotels.

CEO Mike Petterson says he expects the ship to launch by the end of next week.

Angela and Stephen Theriac, another couple on the ship, say they’ve made the most of their wait by visiting Spain, England and Greenland while waiting for the Odyssey to be repaired.

Angela told the BBC: ‘We are travellers, and we want to make the most of the place we are in.

‘We keep teasing we will apply for residency here in Belfast.’

While Stephen added: ‘We have eaten in every restaurant and had a Guinness in every pub.

‘It is just all part of our adventure.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected] .

For more stories like this, check our news page .

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Passengers on around-the-world cruise still haven't moved in three months

P assengers on a round-the-world cruise have been making the most of a bad situation after their ship has been stuck in Belfast for three months.

Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey was supposed to set sail on the first leg of a three-year cruise on May 30 – but problems with the ship’s rudders and gear box mean it’s yet to leave Northern Ireland .

Passengers on the cruise, some of whom have booked cabins for years at a time, have been forced to make Belfast their home while they wait for the ship to be repaired.

While they’re allowed to spend time on the ship during the day, they must disembark during the evenings, with shuttle buses put on to take them to hotels or other accommodations.

This is because many passengers pay for their cabin with a daily rate, similar to a traditional hotel, rather than buying the cabin outright.

Holly Hennessey, originally from Florida in the US, has made the Odyssey her home alongside her pet cat, Captain.

She told the BBC: ‘We can spend all day aboard the ship, and they provide shuttle buses to get on and off.

‘We can have all of our meals and they even have movies and trivia entertainment, almost like cruising except we’re at the dock.

‘I want to stay just as long as I am able. I have always wanted to live on a ship, and it will be a dream come true for me.’

Villa Vie Residences charge anywhere between $99,999 and $899,000 (£75,000-£680,000 to buy a cabin.

They say they’re doing everything they can to ‘relieve the anxiety’ of passengers by planning trips or other cruises, or putting them up in hotels.

CEO Mike Petterson says he expects the ship to launch by the end of next week.

Angela and Stephen Theriac, another couple on the ship, say they’ve made the most of their wait by visiting Spain, England and Greenland while waiting for the Odyssey to be repaired.

Angela told the BBC: ‘We are travellers, and we want to make the most of the place we are in.

‘We keep teasing we will apply for residency here in Belfast.’

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While Stephen added: ‘We have eaten in every restaurant and had a Guinness in every pub.

‘It is just all part of our adventure.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected] .

For more stories like this, check our news page .

Get your need-to-know latest news, feel-good stories, analysis and more by signing up to Metro's News Updates newsletter

Who was onboard tech mogul Mike Lynch's Bayesian yacht?

Topic: Disasters, Accidents and Emergency Incidents

Six people are missing, including a man dubbed the British Bill Gates, after a luxury yacht sank off the Sicilian coast.

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch — freshly acquitted from a decade-long trial — had invited his work colleagues aboard a trip through the Mediterranean coast when a freak storm saw the yacht sink within moments.

Fifteen people escaped from the sinking vessel. The search for the missing continues.

Here's what we know so far: 

What happened?

The Italian coastguard said the yacht — the Bayesian — was anchored off the shore of port city Porticello, near the Sicilian capital Palermo, when it was hit by bad weather sometime after 4am on Monday, local time. 

Eyewitnesses said it vanished quickly beneath the waves shortly before dawn.

Managers of the sailing vessel Bayesian, Camper & Nicholsons, confirmed to the ABC that the Bayesian encountered severe weather and subsequently sank. 

"Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew," they said. 

"The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude," a coastguard official told Reuters.

Sicily's civil protection agency head, Salvo Cocina, said a waterspout — a tornado over the water — could have struck the yacht.

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time," Mr Cocina added. 

Storms and heavy rainfall had swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat, lifting the temperature of the Mediterranean Sea to record levels and raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts told Reuters.

"The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius, which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms," meteorologist Luca Mercalli said.

Rescuers recover the body of one of the people aboard the Bayesian.  ( AP: Lucio Ganci )

Captain Karsten Borner of the Sir Robert Baden Powell vessel told journalists he noticed the Bayesian nearby during the storm, but after it calmed he saw a red flare and realised the ship had simply disappeared.

Mr Borner said he and a crew member boarded their tender and found a lifeboat with 15 people, some of them injured, who they then took aboard and alerted the coast guard.

Search crews, including helicopters and divers, are continuing to search the wreckage, lying at a depth of 49 metres.

Specialist divers reached the ship on Monday but access was limited due to objects in the way, the fire brigade said.

The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is deploying a team of four inspectors to Italy to conduct a preliminary assessment.

The Foreign Commonwealth and Development office said it was "providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families".

Sicilian prosecutors have also opened an investigation into the event. 

Who is missing?

Lawyer Chris Morvillo (left), entrepreneur Mike Lynch, and Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer are among the missing. 

There were 12 passengers and 10 crew members aboard the yacht. 

Mr Cocina said the crew and passengers hailed from a variety of countries, including Britain, the United States, Antigua, France, Germany, Ireland, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain.

Of the 22, one man is confirmed dead and another six people are still missing. 

They are believed to be inside the hull, fire rescue spokesperson Luca Cari said.

Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman who said he responded to a flare from the vessel but found it sunk, said he stayed at the site for three hours without finding anyone.

"I think they are inside, all the missing people," he said.

Rescue teams recovered the body of the yacht's onboard chef on Monday, identified as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.

The still missing people include: 

• Mr Lynch's 18-year-old daughter, Hannah 
• Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of global financial services company Morgan Stanley International
• Chris Morvillo , a lawyer at the British multinational law firm Clifford Chance. He worked on Mr Lynch's lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard
• The identities of the remaining two missing are still unconfirmed

Who was rescued? 

Fifteen people escaped from the sinking ship. 

Eight have been hospitalised and others were taken to a nearby hotel.

Charlotte Golunski was among those rescued, recalling the harrowing moments she held her child Sofia above the waves.  ( Supplied: Facebook  )

Among those rescued were:

• Mr Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, who was the owner of the yacht
• Charlotte Golunski and her one-year-old daughter, Sofia. Ms Golunski is a partner at Mr Lynch's firm, Invoke Capital. She says she momentarily lost hold of Sofia in the water but managed to hold her up above the waves until the lifeboat was inflated
• Ms Golunski's husband James Emslie
• New Zealand captain of the yacht James Catfield. He told Italian newspaper La Repubblica the crew didn't see the storm coming
• A lone Dutch citizen was identified by the Dutch foreign ministry as being rescued, but was not identified

Who is Mike Lynch?

Mr Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s king of technology, was recently freed from a Silicon Valley lawsuit that tarnished his legacy. 

The 59-year-old Cambridge-educated mathematician created Autonomy , a search engine that could pore through emails and other internal business documents to help companies find vital information more quickly. 

He received the OBE for his innovation in 2006. 

He then sold the software to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $US11 billion ($16 billion) in 2011, with Mr Lynch personally netting $US800 million. 

HP valued Autonomy at $US46 billion ($68 billion) in the months leading up to the deal.

Mike Lynch in 2019 leaving the High Court in London.  ( Reuters: Henry Nicholls/File Photo )

But the deal quickly turned sour after he was accused of forging the software's financial records to make the sale.

As part of a decades-long legal battle against HP, Mr Lynch was extradited to the UK on criminal fraud charges. 

He steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, asserting that he was being made a scapegoat for HP's own bungling. 

He was eventually cleared of all charges in June this year. 

Although he avoided a possible prison sentence, Lynch still faced a bill from a civil case in London that HP mostly won during 2022. Damages haven't been determined in that case, but HP is seeking $US4 billion. 

Following the San Francisco trial, Mr Lynch said he would return to the UK and do what he loved most: "[being with] my family and innovating in my field."

The holiday appeared to be something of a celebration after Mr Lynch's acquittal, with guests including some of the people who had stood by Lynch throughout the ordeal.

This picture shows the rescue operations off the Sicilian coast.  ( AP: Italian Coast Guard  )

In a separate act of tragedy, Mr Lynch's co-defendant in the trial, Stephen Chamberlain, died on Monday, after a road accident left him critically injured.

Mr Chamberlain — Autonomy's former vice-president of finance alongside Mr Lynch — was hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning and had been placed on life support. 

What is the Bayesian?

The luxury yacht is 56m long sailboat, with a 75m mast labelled as the tallest aluminium mast in the world.

It was previously named Salute when it flew under a Dutch flag.

The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites and a crew of 10, according to online specialist yacht sites. It was last refitted in 2020.

Online charter sites listed it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $AU 321,000) a week. 

This picture taken on Sunday shows the Bayesian (left) and the Duch sailboat Sir Robert Baden Powell anchored off the coast line.   ( AP: Fabio La Bianca/Baia Santa Nicolicchia )

The ship also won a string of awards for its design. 

Ms Golunski said the yacht had travelled through the Aeolian Islands, Milazzo and Cefalù before sinking. 

It is likely the yacht's name would resonate with Mr Lynch because his PhD thesis and the software that made his fortune was based on Bayesian theory.