2 years ago, a submarine imploded over the wreck of the Titanic

2 years ago, on June 18, 2023, above the wreck of the Titanic, a small exploration submarine imploded, killing 5 people.

Among these 5 people were Shahzada Dawood and her 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, a young Pakistani who boarded the Titan in fear to follow his father, who was fascinated by the Titanic's history.

The Stockton rush, founder and CEO of OceanGate, the company organizing the dive, whose wife had stayed on the ship, and who saw her husband sink to the wreck where his own grandparents had died a century earlier.

There was the thrill-seeking English businessman Hamish Harding, who had taken a tourist trip into space in the company of Victor Vescovo, who played a key role in understanding the causes of the Minerve's accident.

But for me there was Paul-Henri Nargeolet above all.

• It was he who, in 1971, on his own initiative, when the search for the wreck had been abandoned, carried out a few confidential operations using the resources of IFREMER, where he worked.

• It was he who, in 2018, convinced me that a resumption of the search was possible.

• It was he who, a few months later, gave his technical backing to the project to resume the search, publicly maintaining that it was possible.

• It was he who explained the story of the tragedy to the American billionaire Victor Vescovo.

• It was he who organized the dive to explore the wreck and place the commemorative plaque on the wreck on February 1, 2020.

I didn't know him well enough to say he was a friend, but I owed him so much that his name will remain eternally engraved in my heart.

Hervé Fauve, son of the commander of the Minerve submarine.