Last text of British billionaire in missing Titanic sub revealed
The chilling final text of a British billionaire trapped inside the Titanic-bound submersible that vanished deep below the water off Newfoundland on Sunday revealed that weather had been bad for sea travel in the days leading up to the trip.
A day before the OceanGate Expeditions-operated sub was launched, renowned world explorer Hamish Harding sent his friend, retired NASA astronaut Colonel Terry Virts, an update on his grand voyage set to drop 12,500 feet overwater to view the famous shipwreck.
“Hey, we’re headed out tomorrow, it looks good, the weather’s been bad so they’ve been waiting for this,” Haring, 58, messaged Virts.
While sharing the final message with ITV’s Good Morning, Virts said he and his adventure-seeking friend “don’t really talk about risks.”
“He understood the risks for sure, there’s no doubt about that,” Virts added.
“He went down to the deepest part of the ocean, set a few world records… at the Mariana Trench [the deepest part of the ocean] and we talked quite a bit about the risks and the different things that they were going to be able to do. So he was very excited about it,” he said.
A day before the expedition took off, Harding shared his excitement about the trip on Instagram.
The deep-sea voyage was poised to be only the latest in Harding’s impressive travel resume, with the explorer having been one of six astronauts to visit space aboard the Blue Origin mission last year.
Harding, who boasts three Guinness World Records for his daring exploits, has also made multiple trips to the South Pole, including one with Buzz Aldrin, who became the oldest person to reach the pole at 86.
Four others are stuck aboard the submersible with Harding, including one of Pakistan’s wealthiest men, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19.
It’s unclear who else was aboard the ship, although Harding wrote in a social media post that he would be joined by Frenchy Navy diver P.H. Nargeolet, who previously led several expeditions to the Titanic.
OceanGate Expeditions, the private company that launched the vessel, offers private tours of the Titanic wreckage site for $250,000 a person. The company touts its eight-day trip to the Titanic as a “chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary.”
The vessel — which cannot submerge and return to port on its own like a submarine — was reported missing Sunday night after it failed to return to its support ship on time.
Coast Guard crews said Monday night they have just 70 to 96 hours to locate the missing sub and rescue the five people aboard before the vessel runs out of oxygen.
The search is focused on an area about 900 miles off the coast of Cape Cod at a depth of roughly 13,000 feet — making it the deepest-ever rescue mission in history if successful.
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.
Experts, however, have cautioned that few crafts can reach that depth and even if they could, it’s unlikely they could attach to the submersible and tow it up to the ocean’s surface.
Both aircraft and ships are involved in the search for the vessel.
Authorities are also working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can plunge to depths of up to 20,000 feet to the site of the missing sub, according to an advisor to OceanGate, David Concannon.
Read the full article Here
