Search efforts continued Wednesday for a 66-year-old Spanish businessman who fell from his sailboat in the Ionian Sea while traveling with his wife from Italy to Greece last Tuesday.
Juan Jose Mutilba disappeared overboard during the voyage from Sicily to Pylos, their intended destination in southwestern Greece.
His wife was unable to alert authorities for three days because she could not control the sailboat and had no cellphone signal, according to their son, Sergio Mutilba. He said the boat was new and his mother apparently did not know how to steer it.
“We want them to search for him. It is very difficult, but we have hope,” Mutilba told Spanish newspaper El País, adding that the family had also appealed to Spanish authorities for assistance.
One of the missing man’s sons remains in Greece, while his wife has returned to Madrid, where relatives said she was in severe emotional distress.
