Paul-Henri Nargeolet

Paul-Henri Nargeolet
File:Paul-Henri Nargeolet.jpg
Born	(1946-03-02)2 March 1946 Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Haute-Savoie, France
Died	c. North Atlantic Ocean
Cause of death	Implosion of Titan submersible
Other names	P.H. Nargeolet Mr. Titanic
Spouse(s)	Michele Marsh (m. 2024; d. 2017)

Paul-Henri Nargeolet (2 March 1946 – c. 18 June 2023) was a French deep sea explorer and Titanic expert. Known as "Mr. Titanic", Nargeolet was one of five people aboard the submersible Titan, which imploded near the site of the Titanic wreckage in June 2023.

Personal life

Nargeolet was born on 2 March 1946 in Chamonix in the French department of Haute-Savoie. He lived in Casablanca for 13 years before relocating to Paris to complete his studies at age 16.

He was married to U.S. television reporter Michele Marsh until her death in 2017. Later, "thanks to the Titanic," Nargeolet re-established contact with a woman, a childhood friend, who became his partner after his wife died.

Career

French Navy

Nargeolet began his career in the French Navy, where he served as an officer specialising in mine clearance, diving and deep underwater intervention from 1964 to 1986. In the 1970s, he was appointed Commander of the Groupement de Plongeurs Démineurs de Cherbourg, whose mission was to find and neutralise underground mines. In the 1980s, he was transferred to the Underwater Intervention Group (GISMER), where he piloted intervention submarines. During this time, he travelled the world retrieving submerged French planes and helicopters, including the individuals and weapons upon them. Through this work, he found a Roman wreck, located at a depth of 70 metres. He also located a DHC-5 Buffalo that crashed in 1979 with 12 people on board, including several members of the Mauritanian government.

IFREMER

In 1986, the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) contacted Nargeolet about diving to the wreck of the Titanic, which he heartily agreed to. With IFREMER, Nargeolet piloted dives to the Titanic wreck site in 1987, 1993, 1994 and 1996. His 1987 expedition was the first to collect artefacts from the wreckage.

As part of his IFREMER missions, Nargeolet located various aircraft damaged at sea. On 15 May 1993, Nargeolet made a dive with the Nautile and discovered, by chance, La Lune, which sank in 1664 near Toulon.

Center for Maritime & Underwater Resource Management

Beginning in 1994, Nargeolet was director of Michigan State University's Center for Maritime & Underwater Resource Management (CMURM).

Aqua+

From 1996 to 2003, Nargeolet worked with Aqua+, a subsidiary of Canal+, whose objective is to produce underwater films. During his time with the company he directed the underwater missions of two submarines.

Premier Exhibitions, Inc.

In August 2007 RMS Titanic, Inc., owned by Premier Exhibitions, a company that organises travelling exhibitions, commissioned Nargeolet to locate RMS Carpathia, which had rescued survivors of RMS Titanic but was torpedoed in 1918.

Nargeolet worked with RMS Titanic, Inc. to recover artefacts related to the Titanic as the Director of the Underwater Research Program. His work has included utilising remotely operated vehicles (ROV), as well as piloting dives to the wreck site. His work has resulted in recovering nearly 6,000 artefacts over the course of 35 dives. In 2010, he was part of a mission to 3D map the wreck site and determine levels of deterioration using ROVs and autonomous underwater robots.

Also in 2010, he participated in the search for the flight recorder of Air France Flight 447, which crashed the previous year while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

Other

As an expert on the Titanic, Nargeolet participated in creating two documentaries: Titanic: The Legend Lives On (1994) and Deep Inside the Titanic (1999). In 2022, Nargeolet published Dans les profondeurs du Titanic (lit. In the Depths of the Titanic), which recounts his expeditions.

Titan expedition and death

Main article: 2023 Titan submersible incident

In June 2023, Nargeolet 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. Search-and-rescue missions involved water and air support from the United States, Canada and France.

On 22 June, after the discovery of a debris field approximately 490 metres (1,600 ft) from the bow of the Titanic, OceanGate said it believed Nargeolet and the four others aboard "have sadly been lost." A United States Coast Guard press conference later confirmed that the debris lined up with a catastrophic loss of the pressure hull, resulting in the implosion of the submersible vehicle.

Works

• Dans les profondeurs du Titanic. HarperCollins, Paris 2022, ISBN 979-1-03-390984-2

External links

• Paul-Henri Nargeolet at the Internet Movie Database