What we know about who’s on the missing Titan submarine

As rescue crews race against time to find a missing submarine in the North Atlantic, media outlets around the world are learning more about the passengers involved.

The Titan, piloted by OceanGate, dived below the surface on Sunday night with five people on board. There is one pilot, who works for the company, and four “mission specialists” – a term the company uses for paying customers.

Here’s what we know about who’s on the missing vessel.

Shazada and Suleman Dawood

A statement from the Engro Corporation confirmed that the father and son, originally from Pakistan but now living in Surrey, UK, are traveling.

Shazada Dawood is a vice chairman at the Pakistani polymer and chemical company. According to the New York Times, the Dawoods come from one of the wealthiest families in the country.

“All we know so far is that contact with their submersible craft has been lost,” Engro said in a statement. “There is limited information available that we are aware of, and we humbly ask that speculation and theorizing be avoided.”

Shazada Dawood also serves on the board of directors of SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute – which bills itself as “America’s only organization dedicated entirely to the search for life in the universe.”

Hamish Harding

The 58-year-old Briton is an established businessman, pilot and explorer.

Harding holds three Guinness World Records, including one for longest time spent in the deepest part of the ocean during a single dive. He dived to a depth of 11,000 meters on March 5, 2021.

Like Dawood, Harding has a keen interest not only in the depths of the ocean, but also in the heights of space. He was part of a Blue Origin flight — the space tourism project founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — on June 4, 2022.

In keeping with his series of daring adventures, Harding booked a ticket for the Titanic in June 2023.

“Due to Newfoundland’s harshest winter in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only crewed mission to Titanic in 2023,” he wrote in a Facebook post Saturday. “A weather window has just opened and we’re going to try a dive tomorrow.”

Harding is married and has two children.

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