One of the men on the missing Titanic tourist sub clearly understood the risks of such a trip.
Of course, we’ve been tracking the story of the OceanGate Expeditions submarine that has gone missing with five men aboard in the ocean 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The group had been intending to see the wreckage of the Titanic up close. But something went wrong on Sunday, and the submersible lost contact with a ship on the water’s surface. Now, in a race against time, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the US Coast Guard, and others are trying to find the sub before it runs out of oxygen, somewhere in the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean.
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Per multiple media reports, the missing sub contains five people: professional diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, businessman Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman Dawood, and private jet broker Hamish Harding (pictured above).
Harding, a British-born billionaire based in Dubai, has been the focus of considerable attention. For one, his stepson has been tweeting about attending a Blink-182 concert amid the frantic search for his stepfather. That’s a whole thing… And now we are learning more about Harding’s preparation for the trip itself.
Retired American astronaut Terry Virts appeared on ITV‘s Good Morning in the UK on Wednesday to talk about his billionaire friend. During his convo with the British news outlet, Virts revealed Harding sent him a text just hours before the OceanGate sub made its fateful dive on Sunday.
That text to Virts, which would have been one of Harding’s final messages before the descent, read:
“Hey, we’re headed out tomorrow, it looks good, the weather’s been bad so they’ve been waiting for this.”
Virts told the outlet Harding was no stranger to adventures like this. The astronaut claimed his now-missing pal “understood the risks for sure,” and there was “no doubt” he knew how dangerous a dive like this could be.
The astronaut added:
“We had talked quite a bit about the risks and the different things that they were going to be able to do … he was very excited about it.”
That’s all well and good. Sadly, we’re seeing just how risky it all turned out to be now, though…
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Virts’ reveal about how Harding’s text noted “the weather’s been bad” is especially unsettling.
In an Instagram post published on Saturday, Harding also marked the bad weather in the area. Explaining how “a weather window has just opened up,” the aviation broker revealed the team’s intention to “attempt a dive” despite it:
“I am proud to finally announce that I joined @oceangateexped for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic. 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. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
Cryptically, Harding’s IG post then revealed expedition updates would follow “IF the weather holds,” as you can see (below):
“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 team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s including PH Nargeolet. More expedition updates to follow IF the weather holds!”
See it all for yourself:
Chilling.
As of Wednesday morning, Harding’s Instagram page has not shared any further updates.
We continue to hope these men can be found safely and returned to the surface ASAP…
[Image via OceanGate Expeditions/YouTube/Hamish Harding/Instagram]
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