What we know about who is on the missing Titan submersible
4 passengers identified so far, 1 remains unconfirmed
As rescue crews race against the clock to find a missing submersible in the North Atlantic Ocean, media outlets around the world are learning more about the passengers involved.
The Titan, operated by OceanGate, dipped beneath the surface on Sunday evening with five people on board. There is one pilot, who works for the company, and four "mission specialists" — a term the company uses for paying customers.
Here's what we know about who is on the missing watercraft.
Shahzada and Suleman Dawood
The father and son, originally from Pakistan but now living in Surrey, U.K., were confirmed to be on the voyage in a statement from the Engro Corporation.
Shahzada Dawood is a vice-chairman with the Pakistani polymer and chemical company. According to the New York Times, the Dawoods come from one of the wealthiest families in the country.
"All that we know so far is that contact was lost with their submersible craft," reads a statement from Engro. "There is limited information available beyond this that we know, and we humbly request that speculation and theorization is avoided."
Shahzada Dawood is also on the board of directors for SETI — the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute — which bills itself as "America's only organization wholly dedicated to searching for life in the universe."
Hamish Harding
The 58-year-old British national is an established businessman, pilot and exploration enthusiast.
Harding holds three Guinness World Records, including one for the longest time spent in the deepest part of the ocean on a single dive. He plunged to a depth of 11,000 metres on March 5, 2021.
Like Dawood, Harding has a keen interest not only in the depths of the ocean, but also the heights of space. He was part of a Blue Origin flight — the space tourism project founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — on June 4, 2022.
In keeping with his streak of daring adventures, Harding booked a ticket to see the Titanic in June of 2023.
"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 a Facebook post on Saturday. "A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow."
Harding is married and has two children.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet
One of the foremost experts on the Titanic wreckage, Paul-Henri Nargeolet is now counted among the missing, according to multiple French newspapers citing family sources.
The 77-year-old was a member of the first manned voyage to the wreckage in 1987. He's visited multiple times since, and supervised the recovery of more than 5,000 objects from the site.
The former French Navy officer has come to be known as Mr. Titanic because of his obsession with the ill-fated ship. He wrote a book in 2002, titled The Depths of the Titanic.
Stockton Rush
In a brief statement Tuesday afternoon, OceanGate Expeditions confirmed CEO Stockton Rush is aboard the submersible.
The American-born Rush reached the level of captain with United Airlines in 1981 at the age of 19 — the youngest jet transport-rated pilot in the world at the time. He graduated from Princeton with a degree in aerospace engineering three years later.
He founded OceanGate in 2009, overseeing its financial and engineering strategies. The goal was to make his company the world's leading provider of crewed submersibles for charter and research.
The company made its first manned dives to the Titanic wreckage in 2021, and followed up in 2022.
Rush previously told CBC News the goal of the expeditions was to learn more about the wreckage — such as the ecology and the condition of the ship.
"The debris field has not been completely explored, so there are a lot of little things out there," he said. "From a cultural perspective, there are still a lot of things to be discovered."
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