A friend of the British billionaire, who went missing on a diving trip to Titanic, said she feared his submersible was trapped on the seabed.
Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian explorer, said she knew Hamish Harding, 58, would be “calm” amid the crisis.
He is one of five people aboard a submersible that began its descent to Titanic’s resting place at 4 a.m. Sunday, nearly 13,000 feet below the surface.
The round trip, for which participants pay $250,000, typically takes eight hours. But contact with the mothership was lost an hour and 45 minutes before reaching the wreck, and rescuers are now racing against time to recover the submersible and its crew.
“My biggest fear is knowing that they are trapped without being able to get help,” said Mikkelsen.
“There’s no one who can reach him downstairs.”
Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian explorer, is pictured with Hamish Harding, whom she described as a mentor and friend. Harding is currently missing after attempting to reach the Titanic on a submersible
Mikkelsen spoke to NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on Monday night
This is the latest sighting of the Titan submersible, which was launched on Sunday. It can be seen in a photo shared by Hamish Harding’s company. He and the four others on board remain missing
OceanGate Expeditions is one of the companies offering tours to the famous shipwreck. Tickets cost up to $250,000.
Mikkelsen, a cinematographer specializing in extreme environments, said she was deeply concerned that the crew missed their window of ascent – the expected time to surface.
On Monday afternoon, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said the submersible had 96 hours of emergency oxygen on board, according to the ship’s operator.
“I’m afraid they didn’t make their last window of promotion,” Mikkelsen told Chris Cuomo on NewsNation.
“They didn’t do that. “We’re starting to work out worst-case scenarios.”
G. Michael Harris, a Titanic expedition leader, said he knew several of those on board and the prospects were bleak.
He told Fox News’ Jesse Watters that there was onboard oxygen and CO2 scrubbers, but ultimately there was no magic fix.
“I just don’t feel good about it,” he said.
“During our mission, the descent to the wreck site normally takes two and a half hours.
“We’re going down 3,980 meters.” We spiral downward, a corkscrew motion, about three degrees per second to land practically directly in front of Titanic’s bow.
“Once we get down there we start our grid searches and our decay and everything that’s happening with the Titanic.”
leader of the Titanic expedition, @gmichaelharris, says more people have been in space than the depth of the ocean where the missing Titanic tour submarine is located. He says the Navy can’t do anything at the moment and things aren’t looking good. pic.twitter.com/JHdSSZOe3Q
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) June 20, 2023
The US Coast Guard in Boston is now looking for the missing ship. The wreck of the iconic ship lies 12,500 feet underwater about 370 miles from Newfoundland, Canada
The crew dove to the seabed to examine the Titanic wreckage
Harding excitedly posted on social media that he was taking part in the mission before launching the sub
Harris said the worst case scenario would be fuselage implosion at about 10,000 feet.
“I don’t see anything that could happen at this point.” When you’re talking about 6,000 pounds per square inch, that’s a dangerous environment.
“More people have been in space than at this depth of the ocean.”
He said you had to “do everything perfectly by the book” and it “didn’t look good”.
Mikkelsen said Harding acted as a mentor to them and was aware of the risks he was taking.
“Hamish is an explorer at heart and that’s one of the things he wanted to explore on his checklist,” she said.
“Hamish knows the risks before he starts.
“I know Hamish will remain calm, they will go through their checklist of options together.”
Among the expedition’s participants is billionaire Hamish Harding, CEO of Action Aviation in Dubai. He excitedly posted on social media that he was there on Sunday
The mother ship, the MV Polar Prince, departed from Newfoundland on Saturday, bound for the site above the Titanic wreck, 370 miles away.
The submersible entered the water in the early hours of Sunday morning.
On board were Harding, French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet; and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. The other two passengers were not named.
The submarine – not a submarine because it is not self-contained and relies on a mother ship – lost contact with the mother ship an hour and 45 minutes after its descent.
The descent to the wreck takes two and a half hours.
Analysts believe it may have lost power or sunk and may have become stuck in the wreck. Some initially suspected it might have surfaced and swayed with no power, but that seems increasingly remote.
As of Monday afternoon, the submersible had 96 hours of air left and the US Coast Guard said it was in a race against time.
There are no rescue submarines in the US Coast Guard that could penetrate the depths of the Titanic.
Harding holds the Guinness World Record for longest stay on the ocean floor.
The London-born adventurer set it up in 2021 after diving to the deepest place on earth, the Mariana Trench, and traversing it for four hours and 15 minutes.
It was one of three Guinness World Records he has set.
He established another for the longest distance, three miles, traveled on the seabed.
His first location in 2019 was the fastest circumnavigation of the world via the North and South Poles in a Gulfstream 650ER business jet – with Mikkelsen filming the adventure.
Last year he went into space.
The father-of-two, who is friends with astronaut Buzz Aldrin, recently said: “As a kid, I used to read the Guinness World Records book regularly.” I’ve always wondered how I got in there. I didn’t think I could do it.
“And I didn’t want to do something stupid like set a record for the number of ping-pong balls that bounced in a day or anything like that.”
As the frantic search for the Titanic submersible was underway on Monday, family members asked for prayers for Harding as his latest adventure went awry.
The aviator, businessman and explorer poses no danger on dangerous expeditions.
Pictures from Ocean Gate, one of the tour companies running the expeditions, show the wreck
Maritime traffic shows that the Canadian Coast Guard’s Horizon Arctic and Kopit Hobson 1752 are now making their way to the wreck and the Polar Prince, the boat used for the expedition
He told an interviewer in 2021 how his Challenger Deep submarine suffered a damaged engine during its trip to the “really spectacular” Mariana Trench, which lies seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
“The sub has many safety features, including a four-day reserve of oxygen, water and emergency rations,” he said.
“The only problem is that there is no other submarine that would be able to get there to rescue you.” Another will take three years to build.
“So it doesn’t really make a difference to have four days’ supply.”
“If something goes wrong, you don’t come back.”
Harding, who runs an aerospace company in Dubai, also has the honor of taking the oldest man – 86-year-old lunar landing astronaut Aldrin – and the youngest, his 12-year-old son, to the South Pole.
“Buzz is an old friend of mine,” he said.
“We had always talked about traveling to the South Pole together and in 2016 we finally did it.”
Harding was born in Hammersmith, London in 1964 as an only child and has a degree in Science and Chemical Engineering from Cambridge University.
Last year, Harding was one of six astronauts who flew into space aboard the New Shepard rocket on Blue Origin’s fifth manned spaceflight.
And before another trip to the North Pole, two months before his flight into space, he said: “People, especially as they get older, tend to give up on their dreams.” “If I can think of something unusual, I just try to find ways to make it happen.”