The Five Lives Lost in the Titanic Submersible

The five individuals on board a submarine that vanished while on an excursion in search of the Titanic’s debris lost their lives. The U.S. Coast Guard revealed on Thursday that the five people on board the missing submarine had perished in a horrific implosion after days of frantic searching around the Atlantic Ocean.

During a dive to the Titanic debris site in the North Atlantic on Sunday, the Titan submersible lost contact with its support ship with a crew of five on board. All five people on board are reportedly deceased, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and OceanGate Expeditions. British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19 years old son, Suleman, French adventurer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, the company that owns and runs the vessel, were among the people going on the 21-foot sub.

Here’s what to Know about the 5 Passengers who were on the Titanic Sub

Hamish Harding – Chairman Action Aviation

Hamish Harding, a 58-year-old British businessman, and explorer who served as Chairman of Dubai-based Action Aviation’s sales and air operations division holds many Guinness World Records, including one for the longest period of time spent diving through the deepest portion of the ocean. Exploration was nothing new to Hamish Harding. 2019 saw Harding complete an Earth circumnavigation. In the Mariana Trench’s Challenger Deep, the lowest point on Earth, he underwent a descent in 2021. And he took Blue Origin’s New Shepard into orbit last year. Despite not being on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest individuals, the British tycoon has been referred to as a billionaire in the British media.

Harding posted on Facebook prior to the Titanic trip that the expedition was “likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023” due to weather conditions.

After spending more than 2.5 miles with American explorer Victor Vescovo traveling over the Mariana Trench floor, 35,876 feet below the surface of the ocean, in an interview two years ago, Harding spoke about the inherent dangers of undersea adventures.

Paul-Henri Nargeolet – Titanic’s Greatest Explorer

According to OceanGate, the 77-year-old French explorer Nargeolet was regarded as a Titanic expert. He was referred to as “Titanic’s Greatest Explorer” and oversaw six excursions to the ship’s debris. He commanded two deep water submarines at the French Centre for Research and Exploitation of the Water after retiring from the navy in 1986, according to the corporation.  He served as the E/M Group’s director of underwater research and as the director of submerged research for RMS Titanic Inc., an organization devoted to preserving the Titanic’s history.

In a 2020 interview with France Bleu radio, he remarked about the risks of deep diving and stated, “I am not afraid to die, I think it will happen one day.”

Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood – British Pakistani

Dawood served as the vice chairman of both the investment and holding company Dawood Hercules Corp. and the Pakistani energy investment company Engro. The 48-year-old British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman came from one of the richest families in Pakistan. The profile of Dawood Hercules at the SETI Institute, where he also served on the board, states that he is a member of the Dawood Group, a business that has been owned by a family for over a century. The New York Times claims that Dawood was the inheritor of one of the richest family estates in Pakistan.

Mr. Dawood had experience in fertilizer and textiles. Mr. Dawood served on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute’s board of trustees as well. A representative for the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow confirmed on Thursday that his son was a business student there. He also served on a number of boards, including those for Prince Charles’ charity, Prince’s Trust International, and the SETI Institute, a NASA-funded nonprofit organization committed to alien science. Suleman Dawood, his university-bound son, loved reading science fiction and discovering new things.

Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate

Rush, a British businessman, in 2009 started OceanGate, a small business with headquarters in Everett, Washington, a city close to Seattle, and oversaw the creation of submersibles that could descend up to 20,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface while serving as the company’s CEO. Rush obtained a DC-8 Type/Captain’s rate at the United Airlines Jet Training Institute when he was 19 years old, making him the youngest pilot with a jet transport rating.

Rush attained jet transport certification at the age of 19 and began flying to places like Cairo, Mumbai, and Zurich in 1981. He graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor’s in aerospace engineering and from UC Berkeley with a master’s in business. He created and flew his own unique experimental aircraft in 1989. The Simpson’s writer and producer Mike Reiss joined Mr. Rush and another OceanGate submersible on a Titanic dive. According to the New York Times, the CEO was described as a “magnetic man” and as “the last of the American dreamers” by the speaker.