Italian divers said on Thursday that they had recovered all but one body of the six passengers who were missing after a shipwreck this week of a yacht carrying the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his guests.
The Italian Coast Guard said the body that it was still looking for was a woman, suggesting that Mr. Lynch’s body was among those that divers had already recovered, but the authorities have not confirmed the identities of any of the five people they have found over the past two days.
Italian officials have identified the six missing from the yacht as Mr. Lynch and his daughter Hannah; Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Christopher J. Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.
The yacht, the Bayesian, with 10 crew members and 12 passengers, was caught in a sudden and violent downpour in the pre-dawn hours of Monday. Weather experts said that strong winds and lightning had hit the area and that the yacht had most likely been hit by air generated within a thunderstorm descending rapidly or by a waterspout, similar to a tornado over water.
Rescue teams involving deep sea divers with the Italian firefighters’ corps coordinated by the coast guard, as well as helicopters and rescue ships, had worked to reach the hull of the ship, which had settled on its side about 165 feet below the surface. The depth limited the amount of time the divers could be underwater, slowing down the search efforts.
The rescue teams managed to recover four bodies on Wednesday and one on Thursday, bringing them ashore in body bags in front of a crowd of reporters and onlookers.