(Security): Missing Titanic - British Billionaire’s family Accuse OceanGate of taking ‘too long’ to raise Alarm

British billionaire’s family accuse OceanGate of taking ‘too long’ to raise alarm

The family of the British billionaire on board a submersible missing near the wreck of the Titanic on Wednesday said its operator’s eight-hour delay before contacting the authorities was “far too long”.

Rescuers are in a race against time to find Hamish Harding and the four other people aboard the Titan, with the vessel’s oxygen supply expected to run out around midday in the UK on Thursday.

The Titan submersible was reported missing to the US Coast Guard on Sunday at 5.40pm ET, eight hours after the Polar Prince, the boat the submersible launched from, lost contact with it.

Kathleen Cosnett, a cousin of Mr Harding who is on the missing submersible, criticised the operating company OceanGate’s delay in raising the alarm with the coast guard.

“It’s very frightening,” Ms Cosnett, 69, told The Telegraph. “It took so long for them to get going to rescue [them], it’s far too long. I would have thought three hours would be the bare minimum.”

She added that it was “worrying” that her cousin and the other four passengers on the submersible “may not have any extra oxygen left”.

They include two other British passengers, Shahzada Dawood, 48, a wealthy and prominent British-Pakistani businessman and his son, Suleman, 19.

Also aboard are the veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, 77, and Stockton Rush, 61, the founder of the vessel’s US-based operating company OceanGate.

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