Hamish Harding: British adventurer among crew missing on Titanic sub

British adventurer Hamish Harding is among those missing connected a submersible that was diving to the wreck of Titanic, his household person said.

Mr Harding, 58, president of craft steadfast Action Aviation, is simply a renowned explorer who has flown to abstraction and holds 3 Guinness World Records.

His stepson Brian Szasz said successful a now-deleted station connected Facebook: He "has gone missing connected submarine."

Submersible relation OceanGate said its "entire focus" is connected the crew's return.

It added that it was "exploring and mobilizing each options to bring the unit backmost safely".

Over the weekend, Mr Harding said connected societal media a vessel had acceptable disconnected from the metropolis of St John's, successful Newfoundland, Canada, for the destination of the Titanic wreck.

From there, helium and the unit were readying to commencement diving operations successful the submersible down to the wreck astatine astir 4:00 section clip (8:00 GMT) connected Sunday morning.

He wrote connected Facebook that helium was "proud to yet announce" that helium would beryllium aboard the ngo to the wreck of the Titanic.

Due to the "worst wintertime successful Newfoundland successful 40 years," helium said "this ngo is apt to beryllium the archetypal and lone manned ngo to the Titanic successful 2023".

He continued: "A upwind model has conscionable opened up and we are going to effort a dive tomorrow."

Action Aviation said connected Sunday that the sub had had a palmy motorboat and Mr Harding was "currently diving".

Boston's coastguard said an cognition to find 5 radical connected the submersible was nether mode aft interaction was mislaid with it connected Sunday morning.

A spokesperson from the UK's Foreign Office said it was "in interaction with the household of a British antheral pursuing reports of a missing submarine disconnected the seashore of North America."

The eight-day travel to the wreck of the Titanic - tally by OceanGate Expeditions - costs $250,000 (£195,600) per idiosyncratic and starts successful St John's.

Participants question immoderate 370 miles (595km) connected a larger vessel to the country supra the wreck site, past bash an eight-hour dive to the Titanic connected a truck-sized submersible known arsenic Titan.

The Titan is designed to transportation 5 radical and has "life support" for 96 hours for the crew, according to the firm's website.

For Mr Harding, the travel to Titanic's wreckage was the latest successful a drawstring of adventures that has seen him sojourn the South Pole aggregate times, alert into abstraction successful 2022 connected committee Blue Origin's 5th human-crewed flight, and acceptable 3 satellite records - including the longest clip spent astatine afloat water extent during a dive to the deepest portion of the Mariana Trench.

The Titanic sits 3,800m (12,500ft) beneath the aboveground astatine the bottommost of the Atlantic. It is astir 600km (370 miles) disconnected the seashore of Newfoundland.

The rider liner, which was the largest vessel of its time, deed an iceberg connected its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York successful 1912. Of the 2,200 passengers and unit onboard, much than 1,500 died.