Among those on board was Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, a specialist in deep-sea diving.
Five people on board. The passengers of the small submarine Titandisappeared on Sunday near the wreck of the titanicare dead, announced Thursday, June 22, the US Coast Guard. “We now believe that our boss Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet are sadly dead,” for its part confirmed the company OceanGate in a press release. Who were they? franceinfo takes stock.
A French passenger in the submarine
Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, a specialist in deep-sea diving and a passion for maritime archeology, was on board the submarine. Explorer of the seabed, he had spent the first part of his career as a naval officer.
Commander of the group of clearance divers in Cherbourg, he then became a submarine pilot in the French Navy, before moving on to maritime archeology, with the excavation of several wrecks. In 1986, he was appointed head of deep intervention submarines at the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer).
A British billionaire also on board
British businessman and billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, was in the submarine. Familiar with extreme explorations, he often recounted his adventures. Few details are known about the career and fortune of the CEO of the private jet sales company Action Aviation, founded in 2004.
Hamish Harding headed into space a year ago aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket for a ten-minute flight, marking the fifth successful manned mission for Jeff Bezos’ company, his ” mentor”. He held several mentions in the Guinness World Records.
Pakistani businessman and his son present
Aboard the submersible were also a Pakistani businessman and his son, their family said in a statement. They were Shahzada Dawood, 48, vice chairman of conglomerate Engro based in Karachi, southern Pakistan, and Suleman, 19, both British citizens. Engro had investments in several business sectors: energy, agriculture, petrochemicals and telecommunications.
The fifth passenger was the boss of OceanGate Expeditions
The fifth person is Stockton Rush, the American boss of OceanGate Expeditions, the travel organizing company he founded in 2009. The company of the one Smithsonian Magazine describes as “the daredevil inventor” began in 2021 taking paying customers to see the wreckage of the titanic aboard his specially built submersible.
Stockton Rush said visiting the wreck was part of a marketing strategy as he tried to develop new innovations for submersible vessels.