One of the five people believed to have died in the implosion of a submersible that went missing Sunday morning in the Atlantic Ocean while on an expedition to view the wreckage of the RMS Titanic has ties to a Gwinnett County company.
Paul-Henry Nargeolet served as the director of underwater research for Experimental Media Group, which is based in Peachtree Corners. The company's website said it provides museum-quality exhibitions throughout the world. He also worked with E/M Group's affiliate, RMS Titanic, Inc., which has exclusive salvage rights to the RMS Titanic's wreckage site.
RMS Titanic, Inc. is not the same company that led the expedition of the missing submersible, called the Titan. The Titan was operated by the exploration company OceanGate Expeditions, which is based in Washington.
Officials confirmed Thursday afternoon they located debris from the Titan on the sea floor in the area of the Titanic. The submersible is believed to have imploded at some point during its expedition, leaving all five occupants dead.
His biography on the E/M Group website said Nargeolet led several expeditions to the Titanic site and completed 37 dives in a submersible. He also supervised the recovery of 5,000 artifacts. Nargeolet's LinkedIn profile shows he worked with E/M Group since 2007.
Nargeolet was born in Chamonix, France, lived in Africa for 13 years with his family, and returned to France at 16 to complete his studies in Paris. He later joined the French Navy for a 22-year career which saw him rise to the rank of Commander. He retired from the Navy in 1986 and joined the French Institute for Research and Exploitation of Sea where he was in charge of the deep submersibles Nautile and Cyana. He led the first recovery expedition to the Titanic in 1987.
The other four people who were believed to have died aboard the submersible included OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, British businessman Hamish Hardin and father and son Shahzda and Suleman Dawood of Pakistan.
The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago. OceanGate Expeditions has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
