All five passengers on the Titan submersible, which has been missing since Sunday, are dead, the US Coast Guard said. Among them was Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a Titanic specialist.
Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who died while visiting the Titanic wreck with the crew of the Titan submersible, missing since Sunday, is a former submariner-turned-specialist in deep diving and a passion for marine archaeology.
The marine explorer, who comes from Haute-Savoie and is now 77 years old, spent the first part of his career as a naval officer.
As commander of the clearance diving group in Cherbourg (Manche, north-west of France) he then became a submarine pilot of the Undersea Intervention Group, which belongs to the French Navy. From there he turned to marine archeology, excavating several wrecks as part of the Naval Archeology Research Group.
It is adjacent to the wreck of the 1987 Titanic
The real turning point in his career came in 1986, when he assumed responsibility for the deep deployment submarines of the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer). A year earlier, a team led by American scientist Robert Ballard, working with Ifremer, had found the wreck of the Titanic.
As early as 1987, Paul-Henri Nargeolet saw wreckage on board the French submarine Nautile. Dozens of dives followed over the years, notably allowing the recovery of several hundred objects.
The latest date dates back to the summer of 2021, the submariner says in a lengthy interview published on the website of La Cité de la Mer, a museum in Cherbourg.
Searches for missing ships
“Our last dive in the front part of the Titanic, with no current, which is very rare, allowed us to see parts of the wreck from a different angle for the first time, which made it particularly interesting,” he said.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet became director of the research program at RMS Titanic/Phoenix International, which owns the wreck, in 2007.
Not limiting his activities to just researching the ship, he also took part in several search campaigns for missing ships, and in 2010 even the search for the Airbus A330-203 that disappeared during the Rio-Paris flight.