Like millions around the world, I can’t get out of my head the unimaginable terror Titan’s passengers must have felt in their likely final moments.
The claustrophobic dread and inevitably heartbreaking final conversations amidst, I imagine, the staunch belief that the devastating risks they took were a necessary part of conquering our mighty planet.
For centuries, the world’s greatest explorers and adventurers have time and again risked their own lives to advance humanity.
In the coming weeks and months there will be plenty of time to question many of the policies, priorities and, frankly, alarming, procedures of OceanGate and its self-assured CEO Stockton Rush, who went down with his submarine.
But as the distraught families of the Titan Five await news of their loved ones at sea and any serious hope fades after the U.S. Coast Guard’s announcement that a debris field has been found in the search area, the focus must be on the real reality. human cost of this failed expedition.
The US Coast Guard has announced that a debris field has been found in the search area for the submarine Titan (pictured)
Like millions around the world, I can’t get out of my mind the unimaginable terror Titan’s passengers must have felt at their likely last moment, writes Dan Wootton.
Our thoughts must be with London Pakistani Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, just 19 and a student at Strathclyde University in Glasgow.
Not to mention French naval commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who was part of the first human expedition to the Titanic in 1987, and successful British businessman and adventurer Hamish Harding, who is indeed a billionaire.
It’s a new low that the hate-filled left is politicizing this week’s traumatic events, largely due to Harding’s presence on the submarine, to suggest that explorers should be more taxed to stop these trailblazing adventures altogether.
However, that is exactly what happened, with The Guardian columnist and far-left agitator Ash Sarkar leading the charge.
Instead of keeping her communist mouth shut and thinking about the devastated families for just one damn day, she tweeted to her 400,000 followers: “If the super rich can spend £250,000 on vanity trips 1.8 miles under the ocean then they’re not enough charge.’
Not only is such a position morally repugnant given the timing, it also shows everything that is wrong with her Corbynite political philosophy that the West should stop all private innovation while the government wastes our money on more failed state projects.
Aware of the backlash, she doubled down, adding, “The Titanic Submarine is a modern day morality story about what happens when you have too much money, and the grotesque inequity and sympathy, attention and help for those who don’t have it.”
Five people are on board, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who just turned 19
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) sits in the submarine with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition
Ash Sarkar, 31, (pictured) sparked outrage on social media after an ‘extremely grotesque’ tweet about the missing victims of the Titanic tourist submarine
In a tweet to her 400,000 followers, the columnist said the rich are not taxed enough
‘Migrants are ‘meant’ to die at sea; billionaires are not.’
Those comments about the equally disturbing story of the migrant boat that sank off the coast of Greece, killing at least 78 people, had already drawn intellectually dishonest parallels to the rescue operation for the passengers on the Titan.
Ben Kentish of the increasingly left-wing radio station LBC tweeted knowingly: “I desperately hope they find the submarine, but the fate of the five people on it has already received much more attention than the 78 who drowned last week in a tragedy for the coast of Greece – that should certainly make us think. ‘Actually, it shouldn’t.
The Greek tragedy was major news, as were all the sinking small boats crossing the Channel or from Africa to continental Europe.
The Titan’s story is unique in that until 4:48 p.m. tonight, when news from the Coast Guard came through, it remained a clear and current reality that the five crew members could live underwater, even though the likely depth made a rescue attempt nearly impossible. .
But Labor councilor Freddie Bailey added to the false narrative by tweeting: ‘A billionaire missing at sea while watching the Titanic is front page news – 300 migrants die in a boat off Greece and UK media are talking about them as if they are ‘not human.’
However, Sarkar, who seems to have transformed overnight into a nautical engineer, was unwilling to stop her tirade and then took aim directly at Rush and Harding.
“I feel immensely sorry for what must have been a terrifying experience, and had the worst happened, a horrible way to die,” she wrote. “I have absolutely no time for corporate arrogance, both on the part of OceanGate and the billionaires who paid for their services.”
Her comments on the equally disturbing story of the migrant boat that sank off the coast of Greece (pictured), killing at least 78 people, had already drawn intellectually dishonest parallels between the rescue operation for the passengers on the Titan
Sarkar added: ‘The Titanic Submarine is a modern morality story about what happens when you have too much money, and the grotesque inequality and sympathy, attention and help for those without money’
In response to Ms Sarkar, fellow Guardian columnist Ariane Sherine rejected the views
Labor councilor Freddie Bailey added to the false narrative by tweeting: ‘A billionaire missing at sea while watching the Titanic is front page news – 300 migrants die in a boat off the coast of Greece and the British media are talking about them as they are “not human.”
I reiterate that there will be plenty of time to discuss OceanGate’s safety standards, but before Rush’s fate is decided, it feels highly unnecessary.
As for Harding, he was a very experienced adventurer who amassed a fortune from his successful business interests to spend on these types of expeditions, including holding the record for the longest time spent traversing the deepest part of the ocean on the ocean in March 2021. traversed the seabed. and the fastest circumnavigation of the world via the North and South Poles by air; how he chose to spend his money is absolutely none of Sarkar’s business.
It’s not just those on the left who have used the dire situation to spout wild theories.
TV commentator Lin Mei speculated that if they were still alive, the crew would have had to make decisions to kill the members one by one, writing, “That sub had 20 days of oxygen for one person.” They should have voted to keep the boy alive…possibly the captain…there’s no point in everyone dying.”
If there’s ever a time to keep your crazy theory to yourself…
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Cambridge college Harding previously attended continued with a submarine-themed ball on Wednesday night
The billionaire’s cousin Kathleen Cosnett described Pembroke College’s decision to go ahead with the “Into the Depths” event, which featured submarine costumes and dancing to Celine Dion’s Titanic movie number My Heart Will Go ON, as in “extremely bad taste’.
“Polite politeness has been missing for quite a few generations,” she told the Daily Telegraph.
Indeed it has.
I’ve been sickened by the awake left’s attempt to politicize this tragic mission to the Titanic and score cheap points on social media.
There needs to be a post-mortem investigation into what went wrong, but the solution can’t stop other billionaires from investing in future big trips that help make the world a better place.