Global Courant
Fox news
An experienced diver who says he knows three of the five people on the missing submarine who disappeared during a scuba dive to explore the Titanic wreckage is not optimistic they will be rescued.
G. Michael Harris, a Titanic diver who has made multiple visits to the wreckage to recover artifacts, made the comments Monday night on Fox News in an interview with Jesse Watters. He said he has “unconfirmed reports” that three people he knows are aboard the Polar Prince, which disappeared 900 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, including one who was one of Harris’ subpilots.
The only confirmed member of the expedition is billionaire explorer Hamish Hardingthe chairman of global sales company Action Aviation.
In his Instagram post, Harding wrote that the “team on the submarine has some legendary explorers,” including Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a highly experienced French diver who was part of the first ever Titanic recovery expedition in 1987. Nargeolet is the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, Inc, according to a company biography, and has completed more than 35 underwater dives.
The Daily Beast could not independently confirm that Nargeolet was aboard the missing ship.
Speaking to Watters, Harris outlined his fears of what could have happened to his friends aboard the submarine.
“The worst situation is that something happened to the hull and our fear is that it imploded at about 10,000 feet,” Harris said.
He emphasized that the Polar Prince descends to extraordinary depths to reach the wreckage of the Titanic; the journey down takes two and a half hours and over 10,000 feet.
“Is there anything the United States Navy can do right now?” Watters asked Harris.
“No. No. I mean, I don’t see anything that could happen right now,” he replied, “when you’re talking about 6,000 pounds per square inch, it’s a dangerous environment. More people have been in space than in this depth of the ocean. When you dive in these situations, you have to cross your T and dot your Is. You have to do everything perfectly and by the book.”
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“Throw a bunch of tourists into a new submarine that was just made in the last few years,” Harris continued, “it doesn’t look good.”
Oceangate Expeditions, the operator of the submarine, said on its website that the vessel is 96 hours of “life support” in an emergency. The Coast Guard said Monday afternoon they used “every moment” of that time window to find the submarine.
“We have 02 bottles with us in the submarine, and you also have 02 scrubbers,” Harris said of the vessel. “The 02 lasts longer than the C02 scrubbers. If those C02 scrubbers go, and depending on what actually happened at depth… I just don’t feel right about it.”
Last year, the same submarine lost communication for two and a half hours, according to a report from CBS.
“There’s no underwater GPS, so the surface ship has to guide the submarine to the shipwreck by sending text messages,” CBS’ David Pogue explains in the segment, “But on this dive, communications somehow fell gone. The submarine never found the wreck.”
At the time, Oceangate Explorations founder and CEO Stockton Rush offered disappointed passengers “a free transfer next year”. It is unclear if any of those passengers are on the missing Polar Prince.
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