British billionaire Hamish Harding, on board missing tourist sub, collaborated with India to bring cheetahs from Africa

Harding had arranged a customised Boeing 747-400 aircraft for the mission

• Shubham
• 20 June, 2023

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By: Shubham Ghosh

HAMISH HARDING, a British businessman known for his adventurous pursuits, has gone missing along with four others in the Atlantic Ocean. They were aboard a tourist submersible on a mission to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. Contact with the submersible was lost during its dive in the mid-Atlantic on Sunday. OceanGate Expeditions, the company organiSing the expedition, confirmed the loss of their submarine and crew members, including their CEO, Stockton Rush. Efforts are underway to bring the crew back safely.

The 58-year-old Harding, who had previously worked on diverse projects such as launching a business jet service to Antarctica and reintroducing wild cheetahs from Namibia to India, had arranged a customised Boeing 747-400 aircraft for the mission. He has a reputation for exploring the world extensively, having visited the South Pole multiple times and journeyed into space in 2022 on Blue Origin’s fifth human-crewed flight. He holds several world records, including the longest time spent at full ocean depth during a dive to the Mariana Trench.

In a Facebook post before the dive, Harding expressed his excitement about joining the mission to the Titanic wreck, mentioning the challenging weather conditions in Newfoundland. However, a successful launch was reported initially, with Harding diving in the submersible. Later, his stepson Brian Szasz stated in a now-deleted Facebook post that Harding had gone missing on the submarine.

Patrick Woodhead, the founder of British tour operator White Desert Antarctica, praised Harding as an incredible aviation explorer and a proponent of discovering new pathways for global betterment. The UK’s Foreign Office confirmed that it was in contact with Harding’s family, while the Dawood family in Pakistan released a statement expressing concern for the safety of Shahzada Dawood and his son.

A search operation involving military planes, a submarine, and sonar buoys is currently underway to locate the missing vessel and its passengers.

(With agency inputs)