A friend of 58-year-old British billionaire Hamish Harding, who was one of five people killed aboard the Titan submersible while exploring the wreckage of the Titanic, says Harding had a "zest for life."

Richard Wiese, of Weston, is the host of the Emmy award-winning TV show "Born to Explore." He says watching the ordeal unfold in real time was heartbreaking.

"Unfortunately, I've seen this movie before and I don't like how it ends," said Wiese.

Wiese said he was with Harding at a Global Exploration Summit in Azores, Portugal last week where he briefly mentioned how he would be going to the Titanic. Wiese said he never imagined that would be their last encounter but said the way everyone came together to try and help the five people in the submersible provided him with a ray of hope.

"So often in the news cycle, you can get very cynical about humankind," Wiese said. "But during this crisis, Hamish's friends at the Explorer's Club activated in a way I have never seen a group activate. He would have been so touched by how many people put full 100% effort into seeing if they could have a positive outcome."

Wiese said Harding represented everything that's good about exploration.

"People will say, you know, 'Do you have a death wish?' and I would say, no, quite the opposite. These are people who really want to live life," he said.

Harding worked with the Indian government to re-introduce eight wild cheetahs from Namibia to India, where they had gone extinct. It was just one example of the efforts he pursued, Wiese said.

"Explorers are what made civilization. This is what created who we are, and we're definitely a better world for it," Wiese said.