Stepson of billionaire missing on Titanic tourist sub goes to Blink-182 gig as search continues

Steve Hopkins

He has defended his decision.

The stepson of the British billionaire missing aboard the Titanic tourist submarine that disappeared on an expedition to the shipwreck attended a Blink-182 concert just hours after the news broke.

A massive search and rescue operation is underway in the mid-Atlantic after the OceanGate tourist vessel, the Titan, went missing during a dive into the Titanic shipwreck with five people aboard.

British billionaire Hamish Harding, who has previously travelled on the Challenger Deep to the bottom of the ocean and on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin into space, is on the submarine, as is French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, along with Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.

A number of rescue vessels have joined the searchhttps://t.co/CWAMdshTob

— JOE.ie (@JOEdotie) June 21, 2023

Now, Harding’s stepson, Brian Szasz, has defended his decision to attend a Blink-182 concert just hours after news of his stepdad’s disappearance broke.

He had confirmed in a post on social that he was the stepson of Hamish Harding. But just 20 minutes later, Szasz shared a picture of himself attending a Blink-182 concert.

Defending his decision, he wrote: ”It might be distasteful being here but my family would want me to be at the Blink-182 show as it’s my favourite band and music helps me in difficult times!”

He has since deleted the post after his mum asked him to.

The New York Post reports that many of Szasz’s friends took to the comments on the post to support his decision to attend the concert.

On Tuesday, expert David Concannon put the chances of the submersible being rescued safely at around one per cent.

“The margins of success are very slim indeed,” the expert insisted.

“It will likely be a one per cent chance of rescue with them being found safe.

“If they survive, it will be like a Hollywood movie.”

But in the last few hours, with around a day of oxygen left, noises have been detected by the US Coast Guard that are believed to be banging from the sub.

The trip, which is thought to cost £195,000 per head, launched at 4 am, but communications disappeared one hour and 45 minutes into the descent to the wreck site – which sits about 3,800m (12,500ft) below sea level at the bottom of the ocean around 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland but in US waters.