TITANIC historian Craig Sopin has told GB News he tried to contact his close friend Paul-Henri Nargeolet as soon as he heard that the OceanGate submersible had gone missing.

He said he sent a message in the hope he would receive a response to indicate his friend, known as “Mr Titanic”, was not on board.

Me Sopin told Dan Wootton: “It’s actually been a very difficult four days for me. As soon as I heard the news on Monday morning, I sent PH an email hoping against hope that he would write back and tell me that he just didn’t make the voyage for some reason.

“And knowing that PH always responds to me immediately and having not received a response, I knew that he had to be on that ship.

“I can’t see him taking too much risk. He acknowledged that there was risk in anything we do, but he’s a pretty smart guy. I can’t see him doing a project like this unless he felt that it was safe to do.”

Paying tribute tribute to his friend, he added: “He was very passionate about Titanic, which is why I think in this particular case he was more or less a what I can consider to be a tour guide rather than the pilot.

“However, he has piloted many voyages to the Titanic, in fact more than just about anybody else. I think he was down there about 37 times. No one knew more about the layout of this wreck than him.

“Whenever I had a question, about what something looked like or where something could be found, he is the one that I asked. If I were going to go on a voyage, he would be the one I’d want to go with.

“I’ve known him for about 25 years and I can say, and echoing a lot of other people’s opinions, that it is really just too early to tell what happened and what made this ship come apart.”