Billionaire aboard missing Titanic submersible also went to space and holds Guinness World Records for explorations
Billionaire Hamish Harding has used his fortune to explore the world in ways few others can — from outer space and the depths of the ocean — which has earned him three Guinness World Records.
Harding, 58, is among the five people on board a tourist submersible that went missing on Sunday while visiting the shipwreck of the Titanic.
An extreme adventurer, Harding was also a crew member on a 10-minute flight with Blue Origin that journeyed 66.5 miles above Earth last June.
He was one of six astronauts on the spaceflight, which was the fifth of its kind in the Jeff Bezos-backed New Shepherd rocket.
A seat on the rocket is reportedly negotiable and can cost anywhere between $0 and millions of dollars. The first-ever seat aboard the New Shepherd rocket was auctioned off for $28 million.
But the submersible and space trips are just the latest daring exploits for Harding, who has made his fortune as an aircraft pilot and founder of Action Aviation, a United Arab Emirates-based company that buys and sells aircraft.
Harding also holds four Guinness World Records, including the longest time spent navigating the Mariana Trench, the deepest location on Earth that can be found in the Pacific Ocean on the coast of the Philippines.
According to Guinness World Records, in 2021, Harding — along with American private equity investor Victor Vescovo — spent the longest recorded time and the longest distance journeying through the deepest part of the ocean in a single dive.
During the four-hour-and-15-minute-long traverse, Harding and Vescovo traveled nearly three miles at “full ocean depth,” 35,860 feet.
He holds another record for the fastest circumnavigation of the Earth after he crossed both poles in 2019 during a flight that lasted 46 hours, 40 minutes, and 22 seconds.
The nearly two-days-long flight, called One More Orbit, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Harding was also part of two record-breaking missions to the South Pole.
The first was in 2016, when Harding accompanied former astronaut Buzz Aldrin to the southernmost point of the Earth, making Aldrin the oldest person to reach the South Pole at age 86, according to Forbes.
Harding journeyed to the Antarctic location again in 2020 alongside his then-12-year-old son Giles Harding, who became the youngest to visit the South Pole, the outlet reported.
Harding’s explorations earned him one of four European Living Legends of Aviation Awards last year. He joined the ranks of Kenn Ricci, Jeff Bezos, and even Tom Cruise.
The father of two is also a founding member on the board of trustees for The Explorers Club, which bills itself as “a meeting point and unifying force for explorers and scientists worldwide.”
Harding announced that he would be joining OceanGate Expeditions’ five-person tourism group to the Titanic shipwreck aboard Titan via an Instagram post on Sunday.
Tourist submarine exploring Titanic wreckage disappears in Atlantic Ocean
What we know
A submarine on a pricey tourist expedition to the Titanic shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean has vanished with likely only four days’ worth of oxygen. The US Coast Guard said the small submarine began its journey underwater with five passengers Sunday morning, and the Canadian research vessel that it was working with lost contact with the crew about an hour and 45 minutes into the dive.
Who is on board?
The family of world explorer Hamish Harding confirmed on Facebook that he was among the five traveling in the missing submarine. Harding, a British businessman who previously paid for a space ride aboard the Blue Origin rocket last year, shared a photo of himself on Sunday signing a banner for OceanGate’s latest voyage to the shipwreck.
What’s next?
“We’re doing everything we can do to locate the submersible and rescue those on board,” Rear Adm. John Mauger told reporters. “In terms of the hours, we understood that was 96 hours of emergency capability from the operator, and so we anticipate that there’s somewhere between 70 to the full 96 hours available at this point.”
Mauger, first district commander and leader of the search-and-rescue mission, said the US was coordinating with Canada on the operation.
What is it?
Operated by OceanGate Expeditions, the submarine, known as the Titan submersible, holds up to five people. Since 2019, the company has offered tourists the chance to explore the Titanic’s wreckage more than 2 miles below the ocean’s surface off the coast of Canada — at $250,000 per ticket. The Titan usually operates with one chief pilot, three crew members, and then the tourists who pay for the daredevil adventure.
“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,” he wrote in the caption, also nodding to the “legendary explorers” on the team.
Nearly two hours into Titan’s visit to the famed wreck, located about 12,500 feet at the bottom of the ocean, the sub was reported missing.
OceanGate noted that because of the Titanic’s location in the middle of the Atlantic — off the coast of St. John’s, Newfoundland, in Canada — they rely on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites for its communications at sea.
On Sunday, Titan lost contact with its support ship, leaving the people on board with enough oxygen to last about four days.
Also on board the $250,000-per-seat vessel is Shahzada Dawood, 48, one of Pakistan’s wealthiest men, and his 19-year-old son, Sulaiman Dawood.
They’re accompanied by Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a diver and Titanic researcher.
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