Missing British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding is among the five people missing in a submarine that lost contact near the wreck of the Titanic.
Hamish, a pilot and three others paid around $250,000 (around £195,000) to see the wreck which lies 12,500ft beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
The 58-year-old chairman of private plane firm Action Aviation was on the 21ft vessel when it set off for what should have been an eight-hour trip to the bottom of the Atlantic.
The OceanGate Expeditions vessel lost contact around an hour and 45 minutes after it submerged and rescuers warn they may not reach the ocean craft before its oxygen supply runs out.
Last year Hamish was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation in 2022 where he was honoured for being an "enthusiastic pilot" and "experienced skydiver".
The awards body wrote that he lives in Dubai with his wife Linda and two sons Rory and Giles. He also has a stepdaughter named Lauren and a stepson named Brian Szasz, the Guardian reported.
He described the award as an "honour" and thanked his wife and two sons as well as his "very loving, very beautiful, very loyal" golden retrievers.
This expedition was not the private jet dealer's first wild adventure.
He has visited the South Pole multiple times, he flew into space last year on Jeff Bezos’s fifth human spaceflight and he has set three World Records.
He holds the records for the fastest circumnavigation of the Earth via both poles by plane, the greatest distance covered at full ocean depth and the greatest duration spent at full ocean depth.
In 2019, Harding led a team of pilots and astronauts to achieve the first record in 46 hours, 40 minutes and 22 seconds.
This was to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, according to the Living Legends of Aviation.
In 2016 he accompanied the oldest person, age 86, to reach the South Pole and also took his son Giles, age 12, in 2020, who then became the youngest person to reach the icy region.
In 2021, he dived in a two-man submarine mission lasting 36 hours to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench with American explorer Victor Vescovo.
They broke world records by traversing the deepest part of the ocean for four hours and 15 minutes.
"I am proud to finally announce that I joined @oceangateexped for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic", Hamish wrote on Instagram two days ago.
He continued in what now seems like a macabre post: "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. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow."
Colonel Terry Virts, a retired Nasa astronaut with whom Mr Harding broke the Guinness world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the Earth via the North and South Poles by an aircraft, told The Telegraph that he is hopeful they will make it out alive.
He said: “Exploration is what Hamish loves to do – he’s an explorer in his heart, and we’re all hopeful that he and the others can be rescued.”
French submersible pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet and chief executive and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush, are also on board.
British-based Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, make up the rest of those missing, their family said in a statement.
The US Coast Guard said on Monday: “Going into this evening we will continue to fly aircraft and move additional vessels.”
He told Fox News that the agency did not have the right equipment in the search area to do a “comprehensive sonar survey of the bottom”.
He said: “Right now, we’re really just focused on trying to locate the vessel again by saturating the air with aerial assets, by tasking surface assets in the area, and then using the underwater sonar.
“It is a remote area, and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area.” He added that the Coast Guard was “doing everything we can do”.
