New details have emerged revealing that the pilot of the missing Titanic submersible has a connection to two passengers who were on the doomed ship in 1912.
The OceanGate-owned vessel, Titan, with five people on board, lost communication with tour operators less than two hours into its dive on Sunday while about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland during a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck off the coast of Canada.
British billionaire Hamish Harding, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French navy veteran PH Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman are onboard the vessel.
It turns out that Rush, who was piloting the vessel, shares a connection to a couple who were passengers on the Titanic back in 1912.
According to The New York Times, the businessman’s wife Wendy Rush is the great-great-grandchild of Titanic passengers Isidor and Ida Straus.
The couple were killed during the Titanic disaster, and even inspired part of James Cameron’s classic film.
The first-class passengers famously went down with the ship, after Isidor refused to take a seat on the lifeboat while women and children were still waiting to escape.
Ida decided not to leave her husband’s side, and they tragically went down with the ship.
As one of the co-owners of the Macy’s department stores, Isidor was one of the richest people on the ship.
The story of the ill-fated couple inspired a memorable scene in Cameron’s 1997 epic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
Although the couple are not named in the film, the scene when an elderly couple are hugging in bed together as water rises around them was used to represent Isidor and Ida.
Whilst, Isidor’s body was eventually found a few weeks after the disaster, Ida’s was never recovered.
More than 1,500 of the 2,200 people on board the Titanic died in the disaster.
The shipwreck sits at a depth of 3,800 metres in the Atlantic, roughly 500km off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, and was discovered in 1985.
Since then it has been extensively explored and analysed.
It is thought that the missing submersible with Stockton on board has just a few hours of oxygen left, with time rapidly running out for it to be saved.
Related links:
Doctor describes hell Titanic submarine passengers are going through
News channel slammed for starting Titanic submersible oxygen countdown
Loose Women star Janet Street-Porter calls missing Titanic explorers ‘selfish billionaires’
Submarine expert gives grim prediction on survival chances of those on board
