Paul-Henri Nargeolet biography: 13 things about oceanographer born in Haute-Savoie, France

Paul-Henri Nargeolet was a French deep sea explorer. He was an expert of the wreckage of the Titanic, a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912.

In the 1970s, Nargeolet was appointed commander of the Groupement de Plongeurs Démineurs de Cherbourg, whose mission was to find and neutralize underground mines. In the 1980s, he was transferred to the Groupe d’Intervention sous la Mer (GISMER) where he piloted intervention submarines.

While working at GISMER, Nargeolet travelled the world retrieving submerged French planes and helicopters, including the individuals and weapons upon them. He retired at the rank of capitaine de frégate.

Nargeolet was born in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Haute-Savoie, France. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. He was 8 years older than his wife Michele Marie Marsh, a broadcast journalist born in Detroit, Michigan, United States.
2. From 1949 to 1962, he lived in Casablanca, Morocco.
3. In 1962, he moved from Casablanca to Paris, France.
4. From 1964 to 1986, he served in the French Navy as an officer specializing in mine clearance, diving and deep underwater intervention.
5. In 1986, the Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER) contacted him about diving to the wreck of the Titanic and he agreed to go.
6. In 1987, he piloted dives to the Titanic wreck site and the expedition was the first to collect artefacts from the wreckage. He piloted dives to the site again in 1993, 1994 and 1996.
7. In 1994, he became the director of the Center for Maritime and Underwater Resource Management of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. As a Titanic expert, he participated as a creator of the documentaries “Titanic: The Legend Lives On” in 1994 and “Deep Inside the Titanic” in 1999.
8. From 1996 to 2003, he worked with Canal+ subsidiary Aqua+ whose objective is to produce underwater films.
9. In August 2007, RMS Titanic, Inc. commissioned him to locate RMS Carpathia, which had rescued survivors of RMS Titanic but was torpedoed in 1918.
10. In 2010, he was part of a mission to 3D map the wreck site and determine levels of deterioration using remotely operated vehicles and autonomous underwater robots. In the same year, he was involved in the search for the flight recorder of Air France Flight 447, which crashed in 2009 while en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris.
11. On October 17, 2017, his wife Michele died from complications of breast cancer in South Kent, Connecticut, USA at age 63.
12. In 2022, he published “Dans les profondeurs du Titanic“, which recounts his expeditions.
13. On June 18, 2023, he died with Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, 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 77.