The five people aboard a missing submersible that toured the ruins of the Titanic include a space-traveling British billionaire, one of Pakistan’s wealthiest men and a retired commander in the French navy who led the first expedition to the site of the “unsinkable” ship.
The vessel lost contact with its support ship Sunday about an hour and 45 minutes after descending to the wreckage of the 1912 disaster, 12,500 feet under water some 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
Hamish Harding
Airplane sales executive and Guinness World Records holder Hamish Harding, 58, is among the missing, according to family members and social media posts made by the British billionaire.
Harding had previously flown to space on a Blue Origin mission, accompanied former astronaut Buzz Aldrin to the South Pole and was on a flight mission that visited both of the Earth’s poles in record time.
The Dubai-based explorer wrote on Instagram Sunday that he was on the third OceanGate Expeditions tour to the famous ill-fated ship as a “mission specialist.”
He and other guests had paid $250,000 each for the privilege.
“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023,” his post read.
“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
Shanzada and Sulaiman Dawood
Also aboard the five-person vessel were Shanzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman, 19, according to family members.
Dawood is vice chairman of the Pakistani energy manufacturing and tech conglomerate Engro Corporation and sits on the Global Advisory Board for King Charles’ charity, Prince’s Trust International.
He is also a trustee of California-based research institute SETI, whose website states that he lives in the UK with Sulaiman and his wife and daughter.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet
Experienced deep diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, is also aboard the vessel.
Nargeolet led the first expedition to the Titanic wreckage in 1987 after retiring from the French navy, where he served as a commander.
Tourist submersible exploring Titanic wreckage disappears in Atlantic Ocean
What we know
A submersible on a pricey tourist expedition to the Titanic shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean has vanished with likely only four days’ worth of oxygen. The US Coast Guard said the small submarine began its journey underwater with five passengers Sunday morning, and the Canadian research vessel that it was working with lost contact with the crew about an hour and 45 minutes into the dive.
Who is on board?
The family of world explorer Hamish Harding confirmed on Facebook that he was among the five traveling in the missing submarine. Harding, a British businessman who previously paid for a space ride aboard the Blue Origin rocket last year, shared a photo of himself on Sunday signing a banner for OceanGate’s latest voyage to the shipwreck.
Also onboard were Pakistani energy and tech mogul Shanzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman, 19; famed French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush.
What’s next?
“We’re doing everything we can do to locate the submersible and rescue those on board,” Rear Adm. John Mauger told reporters. “In terms of the hours, we understood that was 96 hours of emergency capability from the operator.
Coast Guard officials said they are currently focusing all their efforts on locating the sub first before deploying any vessel capable of reaching as far below as 12,500 feet where the Titanic wreck is located.
While the Coast Guard has no submarine capable of reaching those depths, officials are working around the clock to make sure such a vessel is ready if and when the Titan sub is located.
As of Tuesday afternoon, officials said there was only 40 hours of oxygen left on the Titan.
Mauger, first district commander and leader of the search-and-rescue mission, said the US was coordinating with Canada on the operation.
He serves as the director of RMS Titanic Inc., an underwater research company that owns the rights to the Titanic wreck, and has appeared in several films and programs about the disaster, including “Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron.”
Nargeolet, who is known as “Mr. Titanic,” made a foreboding remark about his many journeys to the site in 2019 when asked by the Irish Examiner if he ever got scared.
“When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realize that something is happening, so it’s just not a problem,” Nargeolet said.
A year later, he told France Bleu radio: “I am not afraid to die, I think it will happen one day.”
Stockton Rush
Rounding out the missing team is Stockton Rush, 61, the founder and CEO of OceanGate, based in Everett, Wash., according to media reports.
Rush became the youngest jet transport-rated pilot in the world in 1981, when he was just 19, according to his biography.
“It is an amazingly beautiful wreck,” Rush told Britain’s Sky News of the Titanic earlier this year.
“You can see inside, we dipped down and saw the grand staircase and saw some of the chandeliers still hanging.”
A frantic Coast Guard search is underway for the missing 22-foot Titan submersible — which, unlike a submarine, cannot launch itself from a port and must depend on a support ship.
By Jesse O’Neill
