Who is Hamish Harding? The former Gloucester schoolboy among those on Titanic submarine

A former Gloucestershire schoolboy is among those missing as noises heard in the search for a missing deep-sea vessel lost near the wreckage of the Titanic continues.

Hamish Harding is among five people on board the submersible that went missing on Monday.

Noises have been detected from the search area after Titan went missing about 435 miles South of St John's in Newfoundland.

The Guinness World Record-winning adventurer attended King's School from 1975 to 1982, before studying at Cambridge for an undergraduate and postgraduate degree and eventually becoming the chair of Action Aviation, which sells private jets and helicopters to the mega-rich.

Mr Harding began studying at the Gloucester private school in 1975 after his family moved to the UK from Hong Kong.

The Gloucester-educated billionaire holds three world records, one for fastest pole-to-pole flight, another for longest distance travelled deep under the ocean, and yet another for the longest period of time spent at full ocean depth.

Rescuers are in a race against time to find billionaire Hamish Harding and four other passengers on board the 6.7 metres (22ft) long OceanGate Expeditions vessel. 

“I’m afraid the odds are vanishingly small".

Chris Parry, a retired navy rear admiral from the UK, said without an “emitting signal” from the missing deep-sea vessel near the wreck site of the Titanic it will be “impossible” to find in the timescale.

He added: “I’m afraid the odds are vanishingly small. Obviously, we want to remain hopeful and optimistic but there are two problems here – one is actually finding the thing and secondly is how on earth are you going to get it off the seabed.

"It’s never been done before and I don’t think anybody’s got any ideas about how to do it at the moment.”