A tourist submersible that was used to take visitors to the Titanic wreck has gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean, and a search is currently underway.

One of the submersibles owned by OceanGate explorations, a business that sends out submersibles for deep water explorations, has gone missing.

Sky News has also learned that Stockton Rush, the chief executive and the founder of OceanGate Expeditions, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French submersible pilot, were also present on board.

Although the submersible can hold five people overall—a pilot and four passengers—it is unclear how many people were on board in total.

Former French Navy officer Paul-Henry Nargeolet spent 25 years as a captain.

He rose through the ranks to captain of the navy’s deep submergence group.

According to The Five Deeps Expedition, a business that puts together scientists, engineers, and submersible operators for expeditions, he joined the French Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) after leaving the service.

Nargeolet is the Director of Underwater Research Program at Premier Exhibitions, RMS Titanic, Inc.

Mr Nargeolet previously spoke frankly of the extreme dangers of deep-sea exploration in an interview.

He said: “If you are 11m or 11km down, if something bad happens, the result is the same. When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realize that something is happening, so it’s just not a problem.”