5 passengers were aboard the missing Titan submersible. Who are they?
The search for the missing submersible has become tedious owing to the numerous obstacles underwater. Here's the list of passengers who were aboard.
It has been four days since the Titan - a submersible taking five people down to the dark, chilly and murky depths of the North Atlantic went missing. An increasingly frantic search-and-rescue multi-agency effort has yielded no result so far even as the clock counts down on the presumed air supply in the tiny underwater craft, which was at 96 hours at the start of the journey and is expected to touch zero sometime this evening. Rescue efforts have been hampered by uneven terrain underwater and the lack of light.
Who are the five passengers on board the missing Titan submersible?
Stockton Rush
Rush is the founder and chief executive officer of OceanGate, a private research and tourism company. He was the pilot and has conducted over a dozen such expeditions. Founded in 2009, the company has succesfully completed other dives to the wreck of the Titanic.
Speaking on CBS Sunday Morning in December, Rush said he believed diving in a submersible is not particularly dangerous. He acknowledged, though, that he sometimes worried about something keeping him from returning to the surface.
"I mean, if you just want to be safe... don't get out of bed... don't get in your car. Don't do anything. At some point, you're going to take some risk and it really is a risk-reward question."
READ | What's it like inside the lost Titan submersible: No seats, one toilet and no windows, ‘you are in a cigar-like tube’
Suleman Dawood
The youngest passenger, Suleman is a fan of science fiction books and recently graduated from ACS International School in Cobham in the United Kingdom. He sits on the board of the Dawood Foundation. ACS head teacher Barnaby Sandow said the school community 'is deeply concerned by news' Suleman and his father are on board the missing submersible.
Shahzada Dawood
A British-Pakistani businessman, Dawood is vice chairman of Pakistani conglomerate Engro Corp., which has a mix of industrial interests. He also directs the family run Dawood Foundation and is a trustee of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, a California-based space research organisation.
READ | ‘Within 5-10 minutes you're in pitch dark’: Former passengers recall unsettling experiences aboard Titan submersible
Paul-Henri Nargeolet
A retired French naval commander Nargeolet is also an author and a world-renowned dive expert with over 35 to the Titanic wreck alone, his colleagues said. "He is the world specialist on the Titanic... its conception and shipwreck... he has dived in four corners of the world - he is a super-hero for us in France," Mathieu Johann, his editor at Harper Collins, said.
Hamish Harding
Harding is the founder of Action Aviation, a United Arab Emirates-based company that buys and sells aircraft. He is also an adventurer who has set world records for deep-sea travel. Harding chairs the Middle East chapter of the Explorers Club, which describes itself as a 'multidisciplinary, professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research, scientific exploration and resource conservation'.
