Paul-Henri Nargeolet, said to be the world’s leading authority on the Titanic wreck site, is one of five people on board the submersible vessel that went missing on Sunday on its descent to the bottom of the Atlantic.
Nargeolet, 77, is the director of underwater research at Premier Exhibitions, RMS Titanic, the company that owns the rights to the Titanic wreck site off the coast of Canada, in the deep ocean, 3,843 metres underwater.
Nargeolet’s family confirmed to French media that he was on board the vessel, Titan, along with Stockton Rush, founder and CEO of the vessel's US-based operating company OceanGate.
They were accompanying three tourists – British billionaire Hamish Harding and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood with his son Suleman – who paid $250,000 (228,630€) each to visit the Titanic wreck.
The vessel went missing on Sunday, about two hours after it started its mission. The US Coast Guard said the vessel could stay underwater for up to 96 hours.
Mr Titanic
Dubbed "Mr Titanic" in a 2022 Le Monde profile when his book Dans les Profonnders du Titanic (In the Depths of the Titanic) came out, Nargeolet is considered the world's leading authority on the Titanic wreck site.
A former commander in the French Navy, Nargeolet was both a deep diver and a mine sweeper.
After a 25-year career, in his retirement Nargeolet pursued his love for the Titanic, the ocean liner that sank on its maiden voyage on 15 April 1921 after colliding with an iceberg on its way from Southampton, England, to New York City.
Nargeolet led the first recovery expedition on board the Nautile in 1987, two years after the wreck was discovered by an autonomous sub.
He has done about 30 deep-sea dives to the wreck on eight expeditions, and has supervised the extraction of 5,000 objects.
He was well aware of the dangers of the deep-sea exploration.
“When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realise that something is happening, so it’s just not a problem,” he told the Irish Examiner in 2019.
(with wires)
