In Missing Titanic Sub: Dawood Head Of CA Seti Institute, Billionaire Who Transported Cheetahs To India
LONDON, (IANS) – The company of British billionaire Hamish Harding, who is among the five people on board a tourist submarine that went missing on June 18 during a dive to the Titanic’s wreckage in the Atlantic, had supplied a special aircraft to transport eight wild cheetahs from Namibia to India last year.
The 58-year-old UAE-based businessman, pilot, explorer, and space tourist, is the founder of Action Group and chairman of Action Aviation, an international aircraft brokerage company with headquarters in Dubai.
In September 2022, Action Aviation, supplied the customized Boeing 747-400 aircraft to transport the cheetahs from Namibia to India to launch the reintroduction of the big cat in the country. Harding, who holds three Guinness World Records, was on the flight to India.
For Harding, the trip to Titanic’s wreckage was the latest in a string of adventures.
He has visited the South Pole multiple times, flown into space in 2022 onboard Blue Origin’s fifth human-crewed flight, and set three world records — including the longest time spent at full ocean depth during a dive to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.
Over the weekend, Harding set off from the city of St John’s, in Newfoundland, Canada, for the destination of the Titanic wreck. From there, he and the crew were planning to start diving operations in the submersible down to the wreck at around 4 a.m. on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, Pakistani billionaire businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman are also on board the missing submarine.
In a statement released on June 20, the Dawood family said: “Our son Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, had embarked on a journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean.
Dawood, from one of Pakistan’s richest families, is a trustee of the Seti Institute, a research organization in California.
The Titanic’s wreck lies some 700 km south of St John’s, Newfoundland, though the rescue mission is being run from Boston, Massachusetts.
