GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Investigators continued to comb the floor of the North Atlantic Friday in a tragic conclusion to the days-long search for a tourist submersible that vanished Sunday following a loss of communication capabilities near the wreck of the Titanic.
Encountering a debris field Thursday, officials revealed a 'catastrophic implosion' had resulted in the deaths of all five aboard, including French Titanic expert and oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
13 ON YOUR SIDE has learned Nargeolet had ties to West Michigan in Grand Rapids Businessman Mark Sellers, who owns Max's South Seas Hideaway on Ionia.
He'd made the explorer's acquaintance more than a decade earlier during a stint at the the helm of the salvage firm in which Nargeolet had occupied a senior role, Sellers elaborated in a Friday interview.
Sellers' Chicago-based investment firm had acquired control of RMS Titanic, Inc., which a US court granted the exclusive right to salvage artifacts from the wreck.
A curated collection of thousands of items recovered from the ocean floor form its famous, traveling 'TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition.'
As chairman until the firm's parent company was sold circa 2015, Sellers related, he worked alongside Nargeolet on several occasions over the years.
Describing the late scientist as a pre-eminent oceanographer and authority on the sprawling wreck site, Sellers recalled Nargeolet's cheerful disposition and passion for exploration.
"He was the real deal," Sellers noted. "He was also a good guy. Everybody loved him. If you talk to scientists around the world, who are oceanographers, they would tell you the same thing--that he was very well respected in his field."
"He gave his whole life and his whole career to the Titanic shipwreck as well as other ocean science," he went on. "It wasn't purely the Titanic, but that's what he's best known for. He's nicknamed Mr. Titanic for a reason. So there is some solace you can take in the fact that he died doing what he loved... It's a loss for sure."
Summing-up Nargeolet's body of work as having added substantially to the world's understanding of its oceans and the famous wreck.
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