Five people are aboard a submarine that has gone missing in the North Atlantic while on an expedition to the Titanic shipwreck.
The group consists of Hamish Harding, founder of investment firm Action Group and an avid adventurer. The 58-year-old Briton holds three Guinness World Records, including the longest time spent traversing the deepest part of the ocean – the Mariana Trench – in a single dive, and the fastest navigating Earth through the North and South Poles by air.
Others on the missing Titan ship include Stockton Rush, founder of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that undertook the voyage to the Titanic. Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, members of one of Pakistan’s most prominent business families, are also on board, their relatives confirmed in a statement. The submarine’s pilot is Frenchman Paul Henry Nargeolet, according to reports.
Harding, who has his birthday next Saturday, wrote in a June 18 post on Instagram that this would likely be the only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023 “due to Newfoundland’s worst weather in 40 years.”
“A weather window has just opened and we are going to try a dive tomorrow,” he wrote.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it received a call from the Titan’s command ship on Sunday that contact had been lost. Planes have been sent as part of the search. According to OceanGate’s website, the Titan has a life support system that can support a crew of five for 96 hours.
Here’s some more information about the crew:
Hamish Harding
Harding is an accomplished businessman who founded UK and Dubai-based private equity firm Action Group in 2002. The company includes Action Aviation, which offers brokerage, management and financing services for aircraft.
His world record for the longest time on the bottom of the ocean came in March 2021, when he spent 4 hours and 15 minutes on the seabed of Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in a submersible vehicle. That is a depth of 10,930 meters (35,850 feet). His fastest circumnavigation of both poles took 46 hours and 40 minutes and was completed in July 2019. He was the pilot and mission director.
Harding’s other Guinness World Record is for the longest distance traveled along the deepest part of the ocean – 4.634 kilometers (2.88 miles), which he did during the Mariana Trench dive in 2021. He also went to the edge of the ocean last year space with Blue Origin LLC, the American company founded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc.
Harding graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in natural sciences and chemical engineering. He is married and has two children.
Stockton Rush
Rush, president of OceanGate, hoped to make Titanic more accessible with visits to the wreckage aboard his private five-person submarine. The original goal was to bring paying guests to the site during weekly visits from May to September, linking the trips to research efforts that allowed passengers to contribute as citizen scientists.
Rush, who increased his inherited wealth through angel and venture investing, holds a degree from Princeton University in aerospace engineering and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Now in his early 60s, Rush became the youngest jet transport rated pilot in the world when he earned his Captain’s rating at the age of 19 from the United Airlines Jet Training Institute in 1981, according to his biography on the OceanGate website.
He worked with Boeing Co. on an early design of the Titan carbon fiber sub and then with NASA.
He has experienced aborted trips to the wreckage of the Titanic in the past – his submarine was struck by lightning in 2018, destroying the electrical system and sinking the mission. A second attempt ended unsuccessfully the following year due to problems with the “mothership” used to transport the team and equipment.
While he initially focused on space and modeled his efforts on Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, Rush said he realized his desire to discover new life forms and go where no one had gone before was more likely in the ocean.
Shahzada and Suleman Dawood
The Dawoods are members of one of Pakistan’s most prominent families, which released a statement on Tuesday confirming they are aboard the Titan.
“Contact with their submarine vessel has been lost and limited information is available. A rescue effort jointly led by multiple government agencies and deep-sea companies is underway to reestablish contact with the submarine and return them safely,” the statement said. .
“We are very grateful for the concern of our colleagues and friends and would like to ask everyone to pray for their safety as we provide privacy to the family at this time. The family is well taken care of and we pray to Allah for a safe return. ” of their relatives.”
Shahzada Dawood is vice president of Engro Corp., which has businesses spanning from fertilizer to power generation. He graduated from the University of Buckingham in 1998 with a law degree and in 2000 from the University of Philadelphia with a master’s degree in textile marketing.
Paul Henry Nargeolet
Nargeolet is a distinguished diver and is considered the world’s leading expert on the Titanic wreck and its debris field, which stretches over 25 square nautical miles. He is director of underwater research for Experiential Media Group, or E/M Group, and RMS Titanic Inc., and has made dozens of underwater dives to the crash site.
He was born in Chamonix, France, lived in Africa with his family for 13 years, completed his studies in Paris and spent 22 years in the French Navy, where he rose to the rank of commander, according to his biography on the website of the E /Mgroup. . He led the first recovery expedition to the Titanic in 1987 after joining the French Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Sea.
Nargeolet spoke to the Titanic Channel about what would happen to someone trapped at the wreck site. He said the cold would be one of the biggest dangers and pointed out that explorers are aware of the risks.
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