The king of England is deeply concerned for the passengers of the lost Oceangate submersible,
but not for the reasons you might think.
In 1912, the Titanic was declared "unsinkable" by White Star Line vice-president Phillip Franklin,
as reported by the BBC. Despite his proclamation, the Titanic is now one
of the world's most famous shipwrecks after hitting an iceberg on April 14,
1912. Images of the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean were perhaps most
famously immortalized in James Cameron's movie "Titanic," starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo
DiCaprio. And there are now 3-D reconstructions of the shipwreck site created via digital scan,
allowing history experts and amateurs alike to pore over the entire site.
Getting to the Titanic site is no easy task. It went down about 400 miles off
the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, and over two miles beneath the surface,
though this hasn't stopped researchers and explorers from launching submersibles to
explore the wreckage. That remote location, however, means that if anything goes wrong
on an expedition to the wreckage, a rescue could be challenging. That's the situation
that's unfolding now. The Titan is an OceanGate Expeditions submersible with
five people in it that has lost contact with its surface expedition, the M.V. Polar Prince.
"There's so many things that have to go right, all the electrical and
navigation systems that have to check out, this is a very complex vehicle."
The lost submersible has become breaking news all across the world,
and one concerned citizen is none other than the ruling monarch of England, King Charles.
It's not just idle concern, either, as Charles actually knows someone onboard the submersible.
Shahzada Dawood, a British-Pakistani businessman. Shazada's son 19-year-old
Suleman is another of the five passengers in the submersible. Shahzada's father was one
of the founding patrons of Prince's Trust International, which King Charles founded,
and Shazada is a member of its Global Advisory Board. Shahzada is also an active
supporter of the British Asian Trust, another charity the king helped start.
King Charles III said that his "thoughts and prayers" are with those in the submersible
that went missing on a trip down to the wreck of the Titanic. King Charles is
joined in his thoughts and prayers by members of both of the charities. The
CEO of the Prince's Trust said, quote, "We are shocked by this awful news."
The British Asian Trust released a statement saying they were, quote,
"devastated by the terrible news." Both charities noted
the valued and longtime relationship they've had with the Dawood family.
The Dawood family is one of the most prominent and prosperous families in
Pakistan, and Shahzada lives in England with his wife and their two kids. Their
family has requested prayers for the submersible passengers at this time.
And The Dawood Foundation based in Pakistan tweeted about the incident
asking people to avoid, quote, "speculation and theorization" over what has happened.
The submersible entered the water on Sunday, June 18, and in less than two hours,
it lost contact with the Polar Prince. By the next day, a search and rescue mission
was mobilized from the U.S. and Canada. U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick said the
vessel had about 40 hours of oxygen left, as of Tuesday, June 20. That gives searchers a grim
deadline to find the submersible before it runs out of oxygen. The search is currently ongoing.
Other passengers aboard the 22-foot-long vessel include the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions Stockton
Rush, the billionaire British adventurer Hamish Harding, and French diver and explorer Paul-Henri
Nargeolet. Typically a dive to the Titanic site in the OceanGate submersible lasts a
total of eight hours, and a couple of dives can happen over the course of an eight-day
trip — it takes a couple of days on the ship just to get to the site. Tickets cost about
$250,000. On the podcast "Unsung Science," Rush spoke about the OceanGate Expeditions
Titanic trips and explained that there were "seven different ways to get the sub back up
to the surface." As to what specifically went wrong on this dive, we don't yet know, and King
Charles is surely joined by many in his thoughts and prayers that all passengers come home safely.