Hamish Harding obit

Hamish Harding, an Explorer Who Knew No Bounds, Dies at 58

An aviation tycoon who pushed the limits, he went to the depths of the ocean and the blackness of space before his fateful dive to the Titanic wreck.

 

He was not on the list.

Hamish was a British businessman, pilot, explorer, adventurer and space tourist based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He was the founder of Action Group and was chairman of Action Aviation, an international aircraft brokerage company with headquarters in Dubai, UAE. As an adventurer, he was a member of The Explorers Club who visited the South Pole several times, descended into the Mariana Trench, broke a Guinness World Record for circumnavigation of the Earth, and travelled into space.

Between 9 and 11 July 2019, Harding was mission director and crew pilot for the flight mission One More Orbit, which set a world speed record for the fastest circumnavigation of Earth by aircraft over both geographic poles.

Harding died with four others inside a submersible that imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean while en route to view the wreck of the Titanic on 18 June 2023.

George Hamish Livingston Harding was born in Hammersmith, London, in 1964. He was educated at The King's School, an independent day school in the city of Gloucester in South West England, followed by Pembroke College, Cambridge.

In 2017, Harding worked with an Antarctic VIP tourism company, White Desert, to introduce the first regular business jet service to the Antarctic using a Gulfstream G550, landing on Wolfs Fang Runway, an ice runway. Harding also visited the South Pole several times, accompanying Buzz Aldrin in 2016, as Aldrin became the oldest person to reach the South Pole (age 86).

On 9–11 July 2019, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Harding, along with Terry Virts, led a team of aviators that took the Guinness World Record for a circumnavigation of the Earth via North and South Poles in a Gulfstream G650ER in 46 hours 40 minutes. The One More Orbit mission launched and landed at the Shuttle Landing Facility (Space Florida) at NASA Kennedy Space Center, US. Harding was the mission director and led a team of over 100.

On 5 March 2021, Harding and Victor Vescovo dived to the deepest point of the Mariana Trench, the Challenger Deep at a depth of 36,000 feet (11,000 m), in a two-person submarine, setting the records for greatest length covered and greatest time spent at full ocean depth.

Harding flew to space as part of the suborbital Blue Origin NS-21 mission, on 4 June 2022, on the fifth manned spaceflight of the New Shepard rocket.

In September 2022, Harding's aviation company Action Aviation supplied a customised Boeing 747-400 aircraft to transport eight wild cheetahs from Namibia to India to launch the reintroduction of the cheetah to India project of the Indian Government and the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia (CCF). Cheetahs have been extinct in India since independence in 1947. This conservation project was designated a "flagged expedition" by the Explorers Club with club members Harding and Laurie Marker, founder of the CCF, carrying the flag on the flight to India.

Harding was onboard the Titan, a vessel owned by OceanGate, Inc., to view the Titanic wreckage, when the vessel lost contact with the above-water ship, MV Polar Prince, on 18 June 2023. Search-and-rescue missions involved water and air support from the United States, Canada and France.

On 22 June, two days before what would have been Harding’s 59th birthday, a debris field was discovered approximately 490 metres (1,600 ft) from the bow of the Titanic. A United States Coast Guard press conference later confirmed that the debris was consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure hull, resulting in an implosion and the death of all on board.