Aviation tycoon Hamish Harding, who was ‘killed,’ aboard the Titan, had 12 months earlier climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
The New York Times reports that the Titanic dive was initially scheduled to be undertaken in June 2022, but got delayed because ‘the submersible was unfortunately damaged on its previous dive.’
Due to the June 2022 mishaps, Hamish Harding decided to fill in the time by traveling to Tanzania and climb the world’s tallest free-standing mountain.
And indeed, Harding would later post on his Facebook page saying, ‘The best view comes after the hardest climb.’
An accompanying map indicated that Harding scaled the mountain for eight days using the Lemosho Route.
It seems like his Kilimanjaro expedition was handled by Altezza Travel.
It was dated on July 22 that summer when Harding climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Moshi with his 20 family members and friends.
Around the same time a year later in 2023, he was aboard a vessel owned by OceanGate, Inc., undertaking the previously postponed undersea journey to view the 112 years’ old Titanic wreckage.
The vessel lost contact with the above-water ship, MV Polar Prince, on 18 June 2023.
Later search-and-rescue missions from the United States, Canada and France were dispatched to locate the Titan.
A debris field was discovered approximately 490 metres from the bow of the Titanic wreckage on June 22, 2023.
The area is within a short range north of the Bermuda triangle, some miles to Halifax strait, a very risky place due to magnetic forces.
It is believed that the missing submersible which the five were on board exploded.
This comes after four days of frantic search and rescue missions dispatched by the US Coast Guard, the Canadian Navy and the Ocean-Gate company crew.
Nothing was forthcoming until the French sent what would actually solve the puzzle of the missing sub and its occupants.
Amid fears of oxygen running out, France sent a robot that can dive to 20,000 feet (6,000 metres) underwater.
The unmanned robot, called Victor 6000, can dive deeper than other equipment now at the site in the North Atlantic and has arms that can be remotely controlled to cut cables or perform other manoeuvres to release a stuck vessel.
The Titanic sank in the night of April 14, 1912.
The magnificent luxury ship, the biggest to be built at that time, had 2,200 passengers and 900 crew members onboard.
The Titanic hit an iceberg which essentially torpedoed it some 700 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The ship’s wreckage lies 3,800 metres beneath the sea surface on the floor of the Atlantic.
It is this rotting hull which the billionaires paid USD 250,000 each to go and see.
When the Titanic sank only 1500 passengers on board were rescued mostly on the first class deck.
The rest of the passengers and the crew went down with the vessel.
It took 73 years for the wreckage to be located.
That means, from 1912 the first sight of the remains of the ship was done in 1985.
It took that long because of the limitations of technology then.
Throughout the seven decades the magical Victor 6000 had not yet been built.
And as though history repeats itself, 112 years later, on the same spot, in a vessel with the same name, a tragic loss of life occurs.
Victor has spotted and relayed information of the debris of the sub.
It hasn’t spotted anything looking like a human being yet.