Crown Prince of Dubai prays for the rescue of OceanGate crew
His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, prayed for the rescue of the crew of the OceanGate bathyscaphe that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean. “We are anxiously following the news,” Sheikh Hamdan wrote.
There are five people aboard the submarine, which was heading to the sinking site of the Titanic cruise liner. They include Dubai resident, Action Aviation chairman and billionaire captain Hamish Harding, and one of Pakistan’s richest businessmen Shahzad Dawood and his son Suleman. Paul-Henri Nargolais, a former French Navy diver who previously explored the Titanic, is also on board, as is Stockton Rush, chief executive of OceanGate, the firm behind the dive.
The manned submersible, with five passengers on board, went missing on June 19 with 96 hours’ oxygen supply. As the Crown Prince of Dubai wrote on Twitter, while search teams are working to rescue the passengers of the bathyscaphe, Dubai residents are praying for their safe return home.
The cost per seat on OceanGate Expeditions is US$250,000. The submersible can dive beneath the surface in ultra-deep water – it is capable of diving to depths of up to 4km. Rescuers hope the sonar equipment will help detect any activity underwater.
The submarine can travel at three knots and descend at 55m per minute, propelled by four electric motors. Attachments include powerful external lighting, cameras and a laser scanner.
The bathyscaphe was on its way to the Titanic wreck off the coast of the Canadian island of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic. The wreckage of the Titanic is about 700km from the island. “The Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 after hitting an iceberg on a voyage from Southampton to New York. Some 1,500 people died in the wreck.
OceanGate has successfully completed more than 14 expeditions and over 200 dives in the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Since 2021, the Bahamas-based OceanGate Expeditions has taken around 60 paying customers and 15-20 explorers to the Titanic wreck site.
Source: Gulf News
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