Along with four other people, Hamish Harding has been missing since Sunday, when the craft plunged 3,800 meters deep to observe the wreck of the famous liner, off Canada.
He went into space with Jeff Bezos and holds the world record for diving nearly 11,000 meters deep in a pocket submarine. British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding, 58, is one of five missing, all of whom boarded a small tourist submarine on Sunday morning June 18. They were on their way to observe the wreck of the “Titanic”, 3,800 meters deep.
>> The “Titanic” wreck, a new tourist destination?
Leaving from the island of Newfoundland, a ship carrying the submarine in question arrived on Sunday, nearly 700 kilometers away at the scene of the sinking of the legendary liner. No more contact could be established with the machine less than seven meters long, named “Titan”, 1h45 after starting its descent.
96 hours of life support
The company, OceanGate Expedition, which offers these expeditions around the Titanic writes on its site that this submersible has vital assistance for 96 hours. Hamish Harding, CEO of Dubai-based private jet sales firm Action Aviation, claimed on social media that he was “proud” to be on board and said that it would be the first and probably the only mission to the Titanic this year, due to the worst winter in the area in 40 years. The businessman has already taken part in several explorations of the South Pole, where he notably accompanied astronaut Buzz Aldrin seven years ago.
The passengers of this exceptional trip – a pilot and four other people – had paid 250,000 dollars to see the mythical wreck.
Very deep research
A search and rescue mission was quickly launched in the North Atlantic. Significant resources, including a specially equipped aircraft, are deployed in the Atlantic off Boston, to try to find the pocket submersible. Two planes, one American and the other Canadian, this one equipped with a sonar take part in it. Problem: the search area is particularly large. They are made on the surface and under water, in a region “about 1,450 km east of Cape Cod, at a depth of about 4,000 m“Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard said Monday afternoon at a press conference.
Leaving Southampton on April 10, 1912 to reach New York, the Titanic, the largest liner in the world at the time of its launch, was shipwrecked after hitting an iceberg five days later. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew, nearly 1,500 perished. The wreck was discovered in 1985 650 kilometers off the Canadian coast, at a depth of 4,000 meters in the international waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, treasure seekers and tourists have been visiting it.