British Billionaire Hamish Harding Among 5 People Missing In Titanic Expedition

A desperate search and rescue operation is underway to find a missing submersible ship that was carrying five passengers to see the Titanic wreck. 

The exploration started on Sunday and was led by OceanGate Expeditions. They were about one hour and 45 minutes into their expedition when the mothership lost all contact with the vessel. The five people and crew are currently trapped inside the boat, which is somewhere thousands of feet underwater. It is vital that they are found soon, as they only have enough air for 96 hours. 

One of the passengers is Hamish Harding, who is a British billionaire explorer. He is a jet pilot and chairman of Action Aviation. He’s known to have flown into space alongside six other people on the Blue Origin Rocket, which Jeff Bezos created. 

Harding tweeted on Saturday about his plans to visit the wreck. He wrote, “RMS TITANIC EXPEDITION I am proud to finally announce that I joined @OceanGateExped for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic. @ExplorersClub @actionaviation @One_More_Orbit #PolarPrince.” 

Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood were also on the boat together. Shahzada is a Pakistani business tycoon and billionaire. Their family owns the Dawood Hercules Corporation, which is one of the largest corporations in the country. In addition to this, he is a trustee of the SETI Institute and many other foundations. 

The only other name released was Paul-Henry Nargeolet, who is a French diver. He is known as “Mr. Titanic” because he spent the most time out of any diver at the Titanic wreck. He has done 35 dives into the wreck and had helped discover 5,000 artifacts. 

Harding confirmed that Nargeolet was on the expedition in a Facebook post where he wrote, “The team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s including PH Nargeolet.” 

It is also believed that Stockton Rush is the fifth passenger on the vessel. He is the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that was leading the tour. The company released a statement on Twitter about its efforts in finding the boat. They outlined four bullet points that summarized their goals. 

“We are exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely. Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families. We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep-sea communities in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible. We are working towards the safe return of the crewmembers.”