Hamish Harding biography: 13 things about pilot, space tourist born in London, England

George Hamish Livingston Harding was a British pilot, space tourist, adventurer, explorer and businessman born in Hammersmith, London, England, United States. He was known as Hamish Harding.

Harding spent his early childhood in Hong Kong. While in the then Crown Colony, he watched the Apollo 11 landing on July 20, 1969 on an old black-and-white television set with his parents.

As a member of The Explorers Club, Harding visited the South Pole several times. Harding was on the board of trustees of The Explorers Club and was chairman of its Middle East chapter.

Harding and his wife Linda Harding have two sons namely Rory Harding and Giles Harding. Hamish was also Lauren Marisa Szasz and Brian Szasz‘s stepfather.

Hamish was a resident of the United Arab Emirates. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. From 1970 to 1975, he attended Peak School in Hong Kong.
2. From 1975 to 1982, he attended The King’s School in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, South West England, England. In 1977, he became a cadet in the Royal Air Force flying Chipmunk trainer airplanes.
3. From 1983 to 1987, he attended Pembroke College in Cambridge, England where he studied natural sciences and chemical engineering. In 1985, he earned his pilot’s license.
4. From 1988 to 1997, he was a Logica employee doing various information technology, technical and managerial roles in Europe and Asia, particularly the Middle East.
5. From 1997 to 2002, he was the managing director of Logica India in Bangalore, India.
6. In 1999, he founded a holding company called Action Group. Based in Dubai, UAE, the company makes investments in group companies or joint ventures.
7. In 2002, he started Action Aviation, which provides aircraft brokerage services to business jet and helicopter owners. In 2004, he became of the chairman of the company that has offices in the U.K. and Dubai and staff in India and the United States.
8. In 2016, he visited the South Pole with Buzz Aldrin.
9. In 2017, he worked with tourism company White Desert to introduce the first regular business jet service to the Antarctic using a Gulfstream G550, landing on the ice runway Wolfs Fang Runway.
10. Between July 9, 2019 and July 11, 2019, he was mission director and crew pilot for the flight mission One More Orbit, which set a world speed record for the fastest circumnavigation of Earth by aircraft over both geographic poles.
11. On March 5, 2021, he and Victor Vescovo dived in a two-person submarine to the Mariana Trench’s deepest point called the Challenger Deep at a depth of 36,000 feet, the greatest length covered and greatest time spent at full ocean depth.
12. On June 4, 2022, he flew to space as part of the suborbital Blue Origin NS-21 mission on the fifth manned spaceflight of the New Shepard rocket. In August 2022, he was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation.
13. On June 18, 2023, he died with Stockton Rush, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood inside the OceanGate submersible Titan that imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean while en route to view the wreck of the Titanic. He was 58.