A billionaire on board the missing Titanic submersible is said to hold four Guinness World Records.
To recap: Search crews have been in a desperate race against time, with international rescue efforts intensifying in a bid to locate the missing Titanic submersible, Titan, as its onboard oxygen supply depleted today.
According to reports, those onboard the 22-ft long submersible are British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, Stockton Rush, OceanGate's founder and CEO, French submersible pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman. The group is now being referred to as "The Titan Five".
However, the Titan's communication - run by Elon Musk's company Starlink - with its tour operators was lost shortly after embarking on its journey to explore the Titanic shipwreck on Sunday (June 18), while the vessel was approximately 435 miles south of St John's, Newfoundland.
As more details of the vessel have emerged they have been met with scrutiny from the public. In fact, those boarding the submersible would have had to sign a waiver that stated: "This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death."
CBS journalist David Pogue reported in 2022 that passengers pay $250,000 to board the sub, which is controlled by a Logitech games controller and comes complete with camping lights inside. Communications with the launch ship are done via text message. "I couldn't help noticing how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components. Piloting the craft is run with a video game controller," he said.
Inside the sub are British billionaire Hamish Harding, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French navy veteran PH Nargeolet, Pakistani business tycoon Shahzada Dawood, and his son Suleman.
Based in the UAE, Harding holds an impressive three Guinness World Records involving ocean dives and navigating Earth via plane in record timing. In 2021, Harding went down for 36 hours in a two-man submarine exploration to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench with American explorer Victor Vescovo. They broke previously held records by traversing the deepest part of the ocean for four hours and 15 minutes and travelling 4.6 kilometres along the sea floor.
Two years earlier, Harding broke the record for the fastest circumnavigation of Earth via both the North and the South Poles in 46 hours and 40 minutes. He was the pilot of the mission, which actually marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, The National News.
In 2016, Harding also accompanied Aldrin – who, at 86, became the oldest person to reach the South Pole - and took his 12-year-old son Giles in 2020, who became the youngest person to reach the South Pole.
Harding's other Guinness World Record is for the longest distance travelled along the deepest part of the ocean – 4.634km, which he did during the Mariana Trench dive in 2021.
So far, search and rescue teams have not yet located the sub, but are expected to hold a press conference later this evening to give an update on the situation.
