Hamish Harding was a British billionaire who founded Action Aviation.
But as well as being a successful entrepreneur, believed to be worth more than $1 billion, Harding was also a world-renowned explorer, space tourist and holds three world records.
Who is Hamish Harding?
Hamish Harding was born in 1964 and went to Cambridge University in England where he studied Natural Sciences and Chemical Engineering.
In 2004, Harding founded Action Aviation – a company that sells commercial and private aircrafts from the UAE.
In 2017, Harding introduced the first regular private jet service to land in Antarctica.
Harding has visited Antarctica numerous times and accompanied Buzz Aldrin in 2016 as he became the oldest person to ever reach the South Pole aged 86.
In 2019 Harding and retired astronaut Terry Virts broke the world speed record for the fastest time to circumnavigate the globe via both poles.
READ MORE ON THE 24/7 PROJECT
The crew travelled on a Gulfstream G650ER.
In 2021, Harding and Victor Vescovo dove to the deepest point of the Mariana Trench, the Challenger Deep – a depth of about 36,000 feet.
The pair travelled in a two-man submarine, and broke two Guinness World Records – the longest duration spent at full ocean depth (4 hours 15 mins) and the greatest distance covered at full ocean depth (4.6 km).
In 2022, Harding was one of six astronauts to go to space onboard the New Shepard rocket, as part of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin NS-21 mission.
The same year, Harding’s aviation company supplied a customised aircraft to transport eight wild cheetahs from Namibia to India.
Cheetahs had been extinct in India since 1947.
In 2023, Harding was one of five people to go missing on board a submarine visiting the wreckage of the RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The men died in what the US Coast Guard believes was a catastrophic implosion.
Five parts of the submersible were found approximately 1600ft from the bow of the Titanic wreck.
Ahead of the trip, Harding said he was “proud to finally announce” he would be aboard the mission but added due to the “worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.”
The eight-day trip to the wreck of the Titanic – run by OceanGate Expeditions – cost $250,000 per person.