Five people, including a British billionaire, are currently onboard a trapped tourist vessel that went missing during a trip to the Titanic wreckage under the sea.
There is a major rescue operation underway to find the submersible Titan, with experts working around the clock to locate its whereabouts.
The Titanic shipwreck can be found just off the coast of Canada, and the sub is said to have lost communication with the Oceangate tour operators on Sunday, June 18 while about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland.
Here is everything that we know about the five people that are currently trapped on board the missing sub.
Shahzada and Suleman Dawood
Shahzada Dawood, 48, is vice-chairman of Pakistani conglomerate Engro Corporation, and a long-time adviser to the Prince’s Trust International, with a focus on its work in Pakistan.
He lives in Surbiton, south-west London, with his son, wife Christine and daughter Alina, according to the Telegraph.
It is understood that the family were already spending a month in Canada before Shahzada and Suleman made the dive.
Neighbours of the family told the Telegraph they were “very good neighbours, nice interesting people” and said Suleman is was 19.
Shahzada has an LLB in Law from the University of Buckingham and an MSc in Textile Marketing from Philadelphia University.
He became a director of the Dawood Hercules Corporation in 1996, and served as vice chairman between 2018 to 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.
As well as his work in business, he is also a supporter of the British Asian Trust, an organisation which tackles poverty in South Asia, and a trustee of the Seti Institute, a research organisation in California which searches for extra-terrestrial life.
Shahzada’s father, Hussain Dawood, was a founding patron of Prince’s Trust International, according to the charity.
Stockton Rush
The chief executive and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush originally trained as a pilot, becoming the youngest jet transport-rated pilot in the world aged 19 in 1981, according to his profile on the OceanGate website.
He graduated from Princeton with a degree in aerospace engineering in 1984, the profile says.
Wendy Rush, nee Weil, is his wife, with their 1986 wedding announcement published in the New York Times.
Ms Weil is listed as the director of communications for OceanGate and a “comms and tracking team member” for the Titanic expedition on her LinkedIn page.
In a 2017 interview with the alumni magazine for Princeton University, where he studied mechanical aerospace engineering, he said: “I was interested in exploration. I thought it was space exploration. I thought it was Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars … and then I realised, it’s all in the ocean.”
Having co-founded OceanGate in 2009, Mr Rush has led crewed expeditions to remote ocean locations including the Titanic.
He is also the founder and member of the board of trustees of the linked charity organisation OceanGate Foundation, which uses marine technology to develop understanding of marine science, history and archaeology.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet
A former commander who served in the French navy for 25 years, Mr Nargeolet, 77, was in the first human expedition to visit the ship in 1987, according to the Telegraph.
He also held a number of roles in deep diving and piloting submersibles, including acting as director of DESM, noted on his LinkedIn profile as a French deep-diving equipment company.
As director of the Underwater Research Programme with RMS Titanic Inc, which owns the rights to the Titanic wreck, he has led the retrieval of items from the ship across many expeditions.
He lives in Connecticut, US, while his adult children live in Cork, Ireland, the Telegraph has reported. He was born in Chamonix, France.
Mr Nargeolet was married to American newsreader Michelle Marsh until her death in 2017 aged 63, according to the New York Times.
Last year, Mr Nargeolet published a book in France about his experiences with the Titanic titled Dans Les Profondeurs Du Titanic (In The Depths Of The Titanic).
In an interview with the Irish Examiner in 2019, he said: “If you are 11 metres or 11 kilometres down, if something bad happens, the result is the same.
“When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realise that something is wrong, so it’s just not a problem.”
Hamish Harding
The billionaire pilot and chair of Action Aviation, a sales and operations company which manages private jet sales, shared on his Instagram account that he had joined the OceanGate expedition as a “mission specialist”.
Mr Harding, 58, is based in the UAE where the Action Aviation HQ is located.
His friend, the marine scientist James Mearn, characterised him as “very charming” and “very adventurous” in an interview with the BBC’s World At One.
He was also described as the “quintessential British explorer” by his friend Colonel Terry Virts, a former commander of the International Space Station on the Today programme.
According to multiple reports, he has two sons, named Rory and Giles, a stepdaughter named Lauren and a stepson, Brian Szasz, and his wife is called Linda.
Mr Harding holds several Guinness world records, including the fastest circumnavigation of the Earth via the North and South Poles by an aircraft, in 46 hours, 40 minutes and 22 seconds.
In March 2021, he was awarded the record for the longest time traversing the deepest part of the ocean on a single dive, alongside Victor Vescovo, at four hours and 15 minutes along the sea floor of Challenger Deep in the western Pacific Ocean.
In an interview with the Dubai-based Khaleej Times newspaper, Mr Harding said of this expedition: “I have always wanted to venture into uncharted territories. That got me interested in embarking on adventures and explorations, in general.”
Last year, he also took part in the fifth human space flight by Jeff Bezos’s aerospace company Blue Origin, according to Sky News.
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