The stepson of a passenger on the Titan submersible is facing criticism for his decision to go see a concert while the fate of the sub remains in doubt, USA Today reported.
As rescuers race to try to find the group whose presumed air supply would be running out sometime on Thursday, Hamish Harding’s stepson, Brian Szasz, tweeted to members of the rock band Blink-182, “My stepdad Hamish is on this submarine lost at sea. I’m devastated but coming to the San Diego show tonight (Monday) so you guys can give me hope and cheer me up.”
@blink182 @tomdelonge @travisbarker @markhoppis My stepdad Hamish is on this submarine lost at sea. I’m devastated but coming to the San Diego show tonight so you guys can give me hope and cheer me up.🖤🙏 https://t.co/Chsw3bmGU8
— Brian (@audioguy182) June 19, 2023
As Szasz’s faced criticism for attending the concert – including from rapper Cardi B – he said he had no regrets going to the event in San Diego.
“One of the billionaires that’s missing underwater from that submarine ... Their stepson is at a concert, right?” Cardi said in an Instagram Story Tuesday.
“People is like, um, ‘What is he supposed to do? Be sad at the house? Is he supposed to go look for him himself?’
“Yes,” the rapper said.
Szasz, 37, shared a photo on his Instagram Story Tuesday of his time at the concert. “Yes I went to @blink-182 last night,” he wrote.
“What am I supposed to do sit at home and watch the news? Not sorry this band has helped me through hard times since 1998.”
Szasz, who works as an audio engineer, also posted about going to the concert on Facebook Tuesday, although the post has since been deleted multiple outlets published screenshots of the post.
Searchers looking for the submersible that went missing carrying five people including Harding to the wreck of the Titanic detected “banging” sounds Tuesday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
However, subsequent searches overnight “yielded negative results” as the clock ticked down to the last 24 hours of the craft’s presumed oxygen supply.
In addition to Harding, Paul-Henry Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood and Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, the company that owns the craft, are on board the submersible.
Named Titan, the 21-foot-long submersible, operated by U.S.-based OceanGate Expeditions, lost contact with its mother ship on the surface of the North Atlantic on Sunday morning about one hour and 45 minutes into what was a two-hour dive to the site of the wreck of the RMS Titanic, which sank in April 1912 after the ship hit an iceberg.
