Who Is Hamish Harding, The British Adventurer Aboard Missing Titanic Tour Submersible?

Adventurer Hamish Harding is among the five people who went missing aboard a tourist submersible visiting the Titanic shipwreck over the weekend.

His stepson Brian Szasz confirmed in a now-deleted post on Facebook that Harding, 58, who is the chairman of aircraft firm Action Aviation, “has gone missing on (the) submarine,” the BBC reported.

Harding is a British businessman and pilot based in the United Arab Emirates who is known for exploring the skies and the ocean and has flown to space, according to Trivedi Tech.

Harding has an Airline Transport Pilots License and business jet type ratings, including the Gulfstream G650.

In 2017, he partnered with White Desert, an Antarctic VIP tourism company, to introduce the first regular business jet service to the Antarctic.

He successfully landed a Gulfstream G550 on Antarctica’s Wolf’s Fang Runway, which is created out of ice.

Harding also made several visits to the South Pole and even accompanied Buzz Aldrin in 2016 as the astronaut became the oldest person to reach the South Pole at 86.

In 2019, the British explorer led a team of aviators, including former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander Col. Terry Virts, in celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s moon landing. They used a Gulfstream G650ER to smash the Guinness World Record for the fastest circumnavigation of the world via both poles.

In addition to these, Harding also teamed up with Victor Vescovo to descend the deepest point of the Mariana Trench, known as Challenger Depp, in a two-man submarine, on March 5, 2021. The daring expedition gave them Guinness World Records for the greatest length covered at full ocean depth and the greatest time spent at full ocean depth after reaching 36,000 feet.

Harding’s passion for exploration isn’t limited to Earth as he was also among the passengers who launched to the edge of space on Jeff Bezos‘ aerospace company Blue Origin’s New Shepard flight in June 2022.

Harding previously talked about his experience in space on his website.

“This is the only planet we have – at the moment. We really have got to get on better with each other,” he said when asked what he would change if he could rule the world for a day. “I recently went into space in Blue Origin, a rocket built by Jeff Bezos. One of the things we did while we were up there [was] spent some good quality time looking out down at the earth.”

He added, “If everybody had the chance to do this they too could see the world from a different perspective. So I’d like to try to get leaders to see that most of the conflict and disagreement really doesn’t matter. Working together, so much more could be achieved.”

Harding said he considered Bezos his dream mentor, praising the Amazon founder for his business strategy.

“He built up a fantastic company – we all use Amazon – and then he reinvested some of the profits from Amazon in Blue Origin,” he said of Bezos. “I was so impressed by the whole operation. He’s not trying to make a return on equity. He is trying to do something very special for humanity, getting millions of people into space over the next few decades.”

Harding’s net worth is not publicly known, but Forbes Australia described him as a “billionaire.”

Harding announced the Titanic mission via Facebook Saturday. In his post, he wrote, “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.”

Officials have not yet provided a new update on the missing submersible that Harding was on, but the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday that a search and rescue operation was underway.

The famous Titanic shipwreck is 12,500 feet at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, according to New York Post.