PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) -Work to recover the late British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s sunken superyacht off the coast of northern Sicily has been paused following the death of a diver involved in the operations, the company leading the effort said on Saturday.
The 56-metre-long (184-foot) Bayesian was moored off the small port of Porticello, near Palermo, in August last year when it was likely hit by a downburst, a very strong downward wind, killing seven people, including Lynch and his daughter Hannah.
“This pause in activity is necessary for the investigations to be completed and to allow all salvage and associated teams to mourn the tragic loss of a highly respected salvage diver during yesterday’s underwater work,” TMC Marine said in a statement.
The accident happened on Friday while the diver was underwater in Porticello, police said, adding that the precise cause of death was still unknown.
Italian news agencies reported that the diver was a 39-year-old Dutch national who worked for the Dutch specialist salvage company Hebo Maritiemservice.
The AGI news agency said the man was hit by a piece of metal as divers were cutting the boom – the horizontal pole attached to the vertical mast of the ship – from the wreck of the Bayesian.
The attempt to lift the yacht off the seabed, as requested by Italian prosecutors, had been scheduled to take place later this month and is supposed to help shed light on how a supposedly unsinkable vessel disappeared into the sea.
It was unclear how long the temporary suspension announced on Saturday would last.
“The salvage team is providing full cooperation to the authorities in their investigations (into the death of the diver)”, Marcus Cave, Head of Naval Architecture and a Director of TMC Marine, said.
“While there is considerable interest in this project, we would ask the media to be considerate of the entire project team and allow sufficient time for the investigations to run their course, and for those affected to reflect and mourn at this terribly sad time,” he added.
(Reporting by Wladimir Pantaleone. Additional reporting by Alvise Armellini. Writing by Claudia Cristoferi. Editing by Keith Weir and Mark Potter)
