A friend of the British billionaire trapped inside a missing submarine en route to the Titanic wreck has revealed the latest message he received from him.
Retired NASA astronaut Colonel Terry Virts said Hamish Harding had texted him to say: “Hi, we’re going out tomorrow, it looks good, the weather has been bad so you’ve been looking forward to this.”
As rescue teams continued to search for the submersible boat that has five people on board, Colonel Virts added that he and his friend “don’t really talk about risks.”
Harding is president of private jet firm Action Aviation, which said he is one of the mission specialists on the OceanGate Expeditions ship that was reported late Sunday night about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. .
A major search and rescue operation, led by the US Coast Guard and involving military aircraft 900 miles east of Cape Cod, continued this morning.
Colonel Terry Virts, a friend of Hamish Harding, speaks on ITV’s Good Morning Britain today.
Hamish Harding is trapped inside a missing submarine on a voyage to the Titanic wreck
Retired NASA astronaut Colonel Terry Virts shared a final text from Harding before his expedition.
This is the latest sighting of the Titan submersible ship, which was launched on Sunday
And Colonel Virts told ITV good morning great britain today: ‘We don’t really talk about risks, you know. She understood the risks for sure, of that there is no doubt.
“The last text I got was, ‘Hey we’re going out tomorrow, it looks good, the weather has been bad so you guys have been looking forward to this.
“He went down to the deepest part of the ocean, set some world records…in the Mariana Trench [deepest part of the ocean] and we talked quite a bit about the risks and the different things they were going to be able to do. So he was very excited about it.
Mr. Harding set a Guinness World Record for the longest duration at the bottom of the sea.
The London-born adventurer took a submersible dive to the deepest place on Earth, the Mariana Trench, and traversed it for four hours and 15 minutes in 2021.
It was one of three world records held by the 58-year-old. He set another for the longest distance, three miles, covered on the ocean floor.
The first was set in 2019, for the fastest circumnavigation of the Earth through the North and South Poles in a Gulfstream 650ER private jet. And last year he went into space.
Speaking about the trip to the Titanic, Colonel Virts added: “Actually, they’re going there for a fun trip, but they’re also doing some serious science.” The wreck of the Titanic has been changing over the years, it is beginning to disintegrate.
“And there are several scientists on the mission who are actually looking at the underwater surface and how the Titanic is doing. So it wasn’t just a fun trip, they were actually doing a real exploration for all of humanity.
OceanGate Expeditions is one of the companies that offers tours of the famous shipwreck
The US Coast Guard in Boston is now searching for the missing ship off Newfoundland
The crew dove to the bottom of the ocean to inspect the wreckage of the Titanic.
“Titanic is not just important to Britain, it is important to everyone. So they can see how the boat deteriorates over the years under the ocean.”
The US Coast Guard said the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince and 106 Rescue Wing will continue to conduct surface searches, while it also dispatched two C-130 flights to search for the missing submersible.
Harding’s cousin, Kathleen Cosnett, told The Daily Telegraph that she viewed Harding as “daring” and “inquisitive”, and that she was “devastated” to learn that he had disappeared.
Taking to social media over the weekend, Harding said he was “proud to finally announce” he would be aboard the mission to the wreck of the Titanic, the luxury liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing more of 1,500 people.
OceanGate Expeditions said its focus was on those aboard the ship and their families.
Harding posted on social media about being on the mission before launching the sub.
Colonel Terry Virts is a retired NASA astronaut and a friend of the late Hamish Harding.
“We are deeply grateful for the extensive assistance we have received from various government agencies and deepwater companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submersible,” the company said in a statement.
“We are working for the safe return of the crew members.”
A court document filed by OceanGate in the US in April states that the submersible, named Titan, can dive to 13,120 feet “with a comfortable margin of safety.”
The vessel weighs 20,000 pounds, is made of “filament-wound carbon fiber and titanium” and has been shown to “withstand the enormous pressures of the ocean depths,” OceanGate said.
The submersible was participating in OceanGate’s third annual voyage to monitor the deterioration of the ship’s wreckage, following expeditions in 2021 and 2022.
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