A Glasgow student has been confirmed as one of the five passengers onboard the missing Titan submersible.
Suleman Dawood, 19, is onboard the vessel with his father Shahzada Dawood, as well as three others.
The University of Strathclyde confirmed that the teen is a Strathclyde Business School student and has just completed his first year.
A spokesperson for the university said: “We are deeply concerned about Suleman, his father and the others involved in this incident.
“Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones and we continue to hope for a positive outcome.”
Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy said her thoughts were with the teenager and his family while speaking at First Minister’s Questions in Holyrood.
She said: “The young man on the Titan submersible is a student in Glasgow.
“I’m sure that everyone here will join me in sharing their thoughts with him and his family at this unprecedented and difficult time.”
READ MORE: Iconic Scottish brand goes into administration with £100m debt
First Minister Humza Yousaf said he was “deeply concerned” and “praying for good news”.
Speaking after First Minister’s Questions, he said: “The university will be deeply concerned. I’m deeply concerned.
"I think we all are deeply concerned, and we’re all hoping, we’re all praying for good news.
Statement from Professor Sir Jim McDonald, Principal & Vice Chancellor:
— University of Strathclyde (@UniStrathclyde) June 22, 2023
To the Strathclyde Community,
I write to you with a heavy heart to share the news that one of our students, Suleman Dawood, is a passenger on board the submersible that is missing in the North Atlantic. (1) pic.twitter.com/t46PVWpADN
"But my thoughts are very much with the families and the communities that are being affected.”
Hopes are fading for the five onboard the missing submersible as the 96-hour oxygen supply dwindled and experts warned the chances of their recue were decreasing all the time.
More ships and expertise have been scrambled to help find the missing deep-sea vessel, which lost communication on Sunday while about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, during a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck off the coast of Canada.
OceanGate Expeditions estimated the oxygen supply on the 6.7m (22ft)-long vessel would last the crew of five 96 hours, giving rescuers a deadline of around midday on Thursday.
Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the US Coast Guard, has said the operation to find a missing submersible is “still an active search and rescue”.
Asked if he believes the oxygen on board will have run out by now, Mr Mauger told Sky News: “We continue to keep the crew members and the families in our thoughts as we proceed with this search and rescue while we’re cognisant of the time and we’ve factored in a lot of data and information into the search.
“This is still an active search and rescue at this point and we’re using the equipment that we have on the bottom right now, the remote operated vehicles to expand our search capability, and then also to provide rescue capability as well.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here