A submarine that was on a trip to visit the Titanic shipwreck has gone missing.
OceanGate Expeditions, the company that operates the vessel, said in a statement that it was "exploring and mobilising all options" to bring the crew back safely.
Rescue teams are continuing the search for a submersible tourist vessel which has five people on board including British billionaire Hamish Harding.
But who is Hamish Harding?
Who is Hamish Harding?
Hamish Harding is a British billionaire and adventurer who has been to space and taken Buzz Aldrin to the South Pole.
Harding is the chairman of private plane firm Action Aviation and was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation in 2022, where he was honoured for being an “enthusiastic pilot” and “experienced skydiver”.
He lives in Dubai with his wife Linda and two sons Rory and Giles, according to the awards body.
Harding has a stepdaughter named Lauren and a stepson named Brian Szasz, the Guardian reports.
He has a natural sciences and chemical engineering degree from the University of Cambridge, according to the newspaper.
The 58-year-old holds three Guinness World Records - fastest circumnavigation of the Earth via both poles by plane, greatest distance covered at full ocean depth and the greatest duration spent at full ocean depth.
A team of pilots and astronauts was led by Harding in 2019 to achieve the first record in 46 hours, 40 minutes and 22 seconds.
This was in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, according to the Living Legends of Aviation.
Harding has made more than one trip to the South Pole with the awards body saying that in 2016 he accompanied Aldrin, who became the oldest person to reach the South Pole aged 86 and took his son Giles in 2020.
Harding dived in a two-man submarine mission lasting 36 hours to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench with American explorer Victor Vescovo, breaking records by traversing the deepest part of the ocean for four hours and 15 minutes and travelling 4.6 kilometres along the sea floor, in 2021.
In a post on Facebook to mark the five-month anniversary of the dive, Harding said: “Can’t believe it’s been that long already but absolutely can’t wait for our next mission/journey/adventure!”
As part of the fifth human space flight run by Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin, Harding flew to space in June 2022.
The adventurer won his Living Legends of Aviation award months later in September which he described as an “honour” in his acceptance speech before thanking his wife and two sons as well as his “very loving, very beautiful, very loyal” golden retrievers.
