Search for OceanGate’s missing Titanic sub widens; crew’s names come to light
Titanic #Titanic
The search for an OceanGate submersible that went out of contact during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic has widened to take in an area of the North Atlantic Ocean that’s the size of the state of Massachusetts.
Among the members of the five-person crew are veteran Titanic explorer PH Nargeolet; Pakistani-born business executive Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman; and Hamish Harding, a British aviation executive and adventurer.
Stockton Rush, the CEO of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate, has served as the pilot of the Titan submersible during previous dives over the past two years — and some reports have listed him among the crew. Bloomberg News cited reports claiming that Nargeolet was the pilot for the dive that began Sunday morning.
OceanGate Expeditions’ mission control ship, the Polar Prince, lost contact with the submersible about an hour and 45 minutes into Sunday’s dive. The last “ping” from Titan reportedly came from an area just above the Titanic wreck, but there’s a chance the sub drifted elsewhere in the depths.
The U.S. Coast Guard, which is leading the search, said in a tweet that 10,000 square miles of ocean — just a little less than Massachusetts’ surface area — had been surveyed as of this morning, roughly 24 hours since the search began. An update on the search is scheduled for 10 a.m. PT today.
Search teams are looking for signs of the sub with the aid of surface ships including the Polar Prince and the Deep Energy, plus Coast Guard C-130 planes and Canadian P-3 Aurora and P-8 Poseidon aircraft. The P-8 is equipped with an underwater sonar detection system, and sonar buoys are also being deployed in the area.
Remotely operated vehicles are reportedly being readied to assist with a rescue if the sub is located.
OceanGate Expeditions says the submersible is designed to provide life support for up to 96 hours, or four days — a time frame that would run out on Thursday.
OceanGate began conducting dives to the Titanic, arguably the world’s best-known shipwreck, in 2021. Its Titan submersible was constructed from carbon composite and titanium to endure the high-pressure environment that exists more than 12,500 feet beneath the ocean surface, in the vicinity of the wreck.
The company’s routine involves picking up crew members at St. John’s, Newfoundland, and bringing them to the dive site about 400 miles offshore. Crew members take turns, five at a time, for attempts to get to the wreck on the ocean floor. The crew for each dive includes a pilot, at least one researcher or expert, and mission specialists who have paid as much as $250,000 to participate in the adventure.
During last year’s GeekWire Summit, Rush said including paying passengers on the crew was an essential part of OceanGate’s business model. “There were researchers who wanted to go in the ocean … but what was the model?” Rush said. “Well, there are folks who want to do high-end adventure tourism. People who were spending $100,000 to climb Everest or go to Antarctica. Maybe we could merge the two.”
Harding and the father-and-son Dawoods fit the model.
Harding, the chairman of British-based Action Aviation, previously participated in a record-setting dive to Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean and a suborbital spaceflight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship.
“We look forward to welcoming him home,” Action Aviation said in a statement.
Shahzada Dawood is the vice chairman of Engro, a Pakistani conglomerate with investments in energy, agriculture, petrochemicals and telecommunications. His family ranks among Pakistan’s richest families. He’s an adviser to Prince’s Trust International in Britain as well as a member of the board of trustees for the SETI Institute. Dawood’s son, Suleman, is said to be 19 years old.
“We, at Engro, remain in prayer for their swift and safe return,” Engro said in a tweet.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet is a French maritime expert who has been on more than 35 dives to the Titanic shipwreck over the course of the past 36 years. Last year, he participated in an OceanGate dive that explored a volcanic ridge near the wreck.
“It was amazing to explore this area and find this fascinating volcanic formation teeming with so much life,” he said afterward. The undersea formation is now known as the Nargeolet-Fanning Ridge.
The pressurized Titan submersible has a proprietary real-time hull monitoring system that’s designed to provide the pilot with advance warning in case structural stresses exceed specified limits. However, Titan did not go through the full procedure for verifying compliance with the shipping industry’s detailed standards, known as “classing.”
In a 2019 blog post, OceanGate defended that decision.
“Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation,” the company said. “For example, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic all rely on experienced inside experts to oversee the daily operations, testing and validation versus bringing in outsiders who need to first be educated before being qualified to ‘validate’ any innovations.”