An experienced diver who says he knows three of the five people on the missing submersible that vanished on a deep-sea dive to explore the wreck of the Titanic is not optimistic they will be rescued.
G. Michael Harris, a Titanic diver who has made multiple visits to the wreck to recover artifacts, made the comments on Fox News on Monday evening in an interview with Jesse Watters. He said he has “unconfirmed reports” that three people he knows are onboard the Polar Prince, which vanished 900 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, including a person who was one of Harris’ sub-pilots.
The only confirmed member of the expedition is billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, the chairman of global sales company Action Aviation.
In his Instagram post, Harding wrote that the “team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers,” including Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a highly-experienced French diver who was part of the very first recovery expedition to the Titanic in 1987. Nargeolet is the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, Inc, according to a company biography, and has completed over 35 submersible dives.
The Daily Beast was unable to independently confirm Nargeolet was onboard the missing vessel.
Speaking to Watters, Harris outlined his fears for what could have happened to his friends onboard the sub.
“Worst situation is something happened to the hull and our fear is that it imploded at around 3,200 meters,” Harris said.
He emphasized that the Polar Prince drops to extraordinary depths to reach the wreck of the Titanic; the journey down takes two and a half hours and more than 10,000 feet.
“Is there anything that the U.S. Navy can do right now?,” Watters asked Harris.
“No. No. I mean, I don’t see anything that can happen at this point,” he responded, “When you’re talking 6,000 pounds per square inch, it is a dangerous environment. More people have been to outer-space than to this depth of the ocean. When you’re diving in these situations you have to cross your T and dot your Is. You have to do everything absolutely perfect and by the book.”
“Throw in a bunch of tourists in a new sub, which was just created in the last couple of years,” Harris continued, “It’s not looking good.”
Oceangate Expeditions, the operator of the submersible, said on its website the vessel has 96 hours of “life support” in an emergency. The Coast Guard said on Monday afternoon they were using “every moment” of that time window to find the submersible.
“We carry 02 bottles with us in the submersible, and you also have C02 scrubbers,” Harris said of the vessel. “The 02 will last longer than the C02 scrubbers. If those C02 scrubbers go, and depending what actually happened at depth…just not feeling good about it.”
Last year, the same submersible lost communications for two and a half hours, according to a report by CBS.
“There is no GPS underwater, so the surface ship is supposed to guide the sub to the shipwreck by sending text messages,” CBS’s David Pogue explains in the segment, “But on this dive, the communication somehow broke down. The sub never found the wreck.”
At the time, Oceangate Explorations founder and CEO Stockton Rush offered disappointed passengers “a free do-over next year.” It is unclear if any of those passengers are on the missing Polar Prince.
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