Eerie footage shows a vicious tornado-like storm engulfing a superyacht before the $58 million luxury vessel disappears “in just 60 seconds”, leaving six people missing.
The video was taken from CCTV cameras on a Sicilian villa 200 metres from where the ship with 22 people on board was moored off the coast.
Italian media report the villa’s owner checked the cameras after Monday’s freak tragedy and described the superyacht vanishing before his eyes.
“In just 60 seconds you can see that the ship disappears,” they said.
“You can see very well what is happening. There was nothing that could be done for the boat. It disappeared in a very short time.”
While grainy, the footage shows the unmistakable mast of the Bayesian and its glittering lights on the surface of the ocean before the violent storm strikes.
Suddenly, wild winds and rain begin lashing the area, and the boat’s lights gradually disappear from view as the Bayesian goes down.
Police divers have resumed searching for six people who are believed to be trapped in the hull. They including British tech magnate Mike Lynch, who was recently acquitted of fraud charges.
His lawyer and a key defence witness at the trial are also among the missing.
One body has been recovered, identified by officials as the luxury yacht’s Antiguan-born chef.
The resting place of the yacht, off Porticello, is 50 metres under water – a depth that requires special precautions. Rescue crews said they were working in 12-minute shifts, which was slowing progress to reach the cramped inside of the wreck.
The Bayesian, a 56-metre British-flagged luxury yacht, was moored about a kilometre off Ponticello when a storm rolled in before 4am on Monday (Italy time).
Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water.
Fifteen of the 22 people aboard survived, including a mother who reported holding her one-year-old baby over the waves to save her.
Fire rescue officials have said the other six on board will be considered missing until they are found in the wreckage.
Karsten Borner, the captain of nearby yacht, the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which rescued the survivors who managed to get into a lifeboat, said he was close enough to be able to see the Bayesian as the weather came in. By the time the storm cleared, it had disappeared.“They said they went flat on the water and were sunk in two minutes,” Borner said, quoting the survivors.
Rotating search teams, each made up of two specialised cave divers, worked on Tuesday to open up access points to get inside the wreck, which is much too deep for most most recreational divers to reach.
They have not yet been able to access the below-deck cabins because they were blocked by furniture that had shifted during the violent storm.
Rescue crews assume the missing six are in those cabins because the storm struck when most would be sleeping.
Rescue team spokesman Luca Cari said the search was much slower than for another big shipwreck in Italy, the 2012 Costa Concordia cruise ship, which flipped on its side off Tuscany’s coast. That is due to the depth of the wreck and the space divers have to manoeuvre.
Morgan Stanley chairman missing
Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s king of technology, is among the missing.
He was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges in a US federal trial related to Hewlett Packard’s $US11 billion ($A16 billion) takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp.
His wife, Angela Bacares, survived.
The sailing holiday appeared to be something of a celebration after Lynch’s acquittal.
Some of the people who stood by Lynch throughout his legal troubles were on board, including one of his US lawyers, Christopher Morvillo, and Morvillo’s wife.
Both remain unaccounted for, according to the civil protection agency.
Also missing is Jonathan Bloomer, a chairman at Morgan Stanley International and the former head of the Autonomy audit committee who testified in Lynch’s defence, and his wife.
Charlotte Golunski, who survived the disaster, said she momentarily lost hold of her one-year-old daughter Sofia in the water. She got hold of her again and held her up above the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
The baby’s father, identified by ANSA as James Emslie, also survived.
The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew.
According to online charter companies, it has been available for charter for €195,000 ($320,000) a week and is notable for its massive 75-metre aluminium mast, one of the tallest in the world.
-with AAP
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