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Titanic Tourist Submarine Goes Missing with Billionaire Explorer on Board

A British explorer who has journeyed the depths of the ocean and blasted off to space is feared to be one of the passengers aboard a missing submarine that set off to explore the wreckage of the Titanic and is now the subject of a frantic search-and-rescue mission.

Hamish Harding, chairman of a Dubai-based company called Action Aviation and reportedly a billionaire, announced on social media over the weekend that he joined OceanGate Expeditions as a specialist for a journey to the Titanic’s remains some 2.5 miles down on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean about 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023,” said a post to Instagram.

“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow. We started steaming from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada yesterday and are planning to start dive operations around 4am tomorrow morning. Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do.”

The post also said the sub team included some “legendary explorers” with more than 30 dives to the Titanic since the 1980s. One person who was mentioned was French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet, though it is unclear as of press time whether he was aboard the missing vessel.

Brian Szasz, Harding’s stepson, posted to Facebook, asking people to pray for his stepfather, according to the Daily Mail. “Thoughts and prayers for my stepfather Hamish Harding as his Submarine has gone missing exploring Titanic. Search and rescue mission is underway,” the post said.

Harding, who is reportedly a resident of the United Arab Emirates, is known for his adventures across the planet and beyond in recent years. He took part in a Blue Origin spaceflight, explored the ocean depths of the Mariana Trench, and visited the South Pole, the New York Post reported.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it is searching for a 21-foot submersible from the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince about 900 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. “The 5 person crew submerged Sunday morning, and the crew of the Polar Prince lost contact with them approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes into the vessel’s dive,” a Twitter account for the U.S. Coast Guard added.

During a press conference Monday afternoon, Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District, said the search is being conducted in cooperation with Canada on the surface and underwater with the help of sonar buoys. He declined to identify anyone who is onboard the submarine, but noted that officials are reaching out to the families of the crew. Mauger also said the ship has a life support system with oxygen lasting up to 96 hours and that there may be as little as 70 hours left.

The Titanic sank during its maiden voyage in April 1912 after hitting an iceberg while making the journey from Southampton, England, to New York City, according to History.com. With the vessel sinking and passengers scrambling for a spot on a lifeboat, more than 1,500 people of the roughly 2,240 aboard the Titanic died.

Several decades later, in 1985, a joint French-American expedition found the wreckage of the ship, located some 13,000 feet underwater on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Further exploration, a blockbuster movie, and deep-sea tourism ensued.

OceanGate Expeditions, a company which offers trips to the sunken Titanic wreckage for up to $250,000 per-person in a vessel that can seat up to five people, released a statement expressing gratitude for the help in searching for the wayward ship amid concerns about how much air remains for the crew.

“Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families, we are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible,” the company said.

READ 4 COMMENTS
  • Scurvydog says:

    I’m sorry for those folks in that submersible, but why is a billionaire’s suffering any different than the rest of them? We will all meet our fate, regardless of our financial status. The only billionaire I know that has cheated death thus far is George Soros. He’s been here since he rocks were soft. I simply don’t understand why a billionaire should be mourned more than a homeless veteran who dies from exposure to the elements.

  • PJ Wray says:

    Prayers for the safe recovery of the crew.

  • Louis Galmarini says:

    This (ironically) is Titanic 2.0. Think about it…

    The battle between a central banking system and a free-enterprise competition market has been raging since just after the States gained their independence from England.

    After the Civil War, America was – broke. Literally. The North had ‘won’ the war, but the country (as a whole) was destitute and needed to procure outside financial resources to sustain itself. Enter: The Rothschilds. Global elites such as J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, John Rockefeller, and others joined the Rothschilds in Brussels, Belgium before the War was even over. By 1865, they had made a pact w/ the U.S. government to lend/borrow whatever monies were needed for reconstruction, etc., based on the number of people the U.S. would total up as the first census was in order soon afterwards. By the 1880’s, every man, woman, and child in the U.S. was considered a ‘trade’ item, worth X amount of dollars during his expected lifetime, and which was used as ‘leverage’ for whatever loans the U.S. needed. Soon after, social security numbers were being issued to keep track of each ‘trade item’, and what their financial worth (as a commodity) would be.

    By the early 20th century, the battle of having a central banking system or not was at a fever pitch.
    J.P. Morgan, losing patience w/ trying to establish a central banking system w/ many of the global elites, established the White Star Lines in 1910 and had 2 ships built. One was the Titanic. He ‘invited’ all his ‘friends’ to be part of an ‘historic maiden voyage’ of the ‘first unsinkable’ ship. Most of his ‘friends’ were actually – his enemies. They were John Astor and many others who believed fair trade and entrepreneurship in manufacturing, marketing, and delivery would facilitate competition, be the masthead for a thriving/growing economy, and therefore saw no reason to have a central banking system (for ‘oversight’). J.D. believed in a centralized banking system, invited and ‘sunk’ many of his rivals on the doomed Titanic, (which was purposely driven by command into dangerous waters on a breakneck speed, [again on orders of on high]), and in doing so, gained the fruits of his accomplishment as early as the next year. The Titanic went down April 14, 1912, and the Federal Reserve was established the very next year. This is the same ‘Fed’ we have today, where a select number of people are unified into a consortium, (the Federal Reserve), and which control ALL money/stocks/certificates being manufactured, facilitated, and ‘borrowed’ by the United States of America – w/ interest, (which is at their discretion and their discretion alone.

    Now, (ironically), one of their own, (a billionaire, global elite), has been properly ‘eliminated’. For what reasons, we’ll probably never learn…but trust me – THIS WAS NO ACCIDENT, as was the Titanic.

  • Louis Galmarini says:

    It’s already been reported and credibly corroborated that a former employee is suing the submersible company after he was unjustifiably fired for reporting his findings of a portal which did not meet safety regulatory compliance to aquatic pressure standards in the safety tests he administered. Also, (upon request for all safety records by the U.S. Coast Guard), the company cannot produce the primary nor secondary safety checks which are required, and which are to be performed before each dive.

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