The woman who lost son and husband aboard Titan sub has shared the tragic reason her 17-year-son went aboard the doomed Titan sub where he died alongside dad.
Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman were last seen pictured arm in arm and appear excited to board the sub, which suffered a “catastrophic implosion” less than two hours into a dive to the Titanic wreckage killing all five crew on board
Christine Dawood, Shahzada’s widow, said she was set to board the Titan vessel herself, alongside her husband, before switching places with her son.
In 2019, the family were on holiday in Greenland where Christine spotted an OceanGate ad, offering trips to the Titanic.
The family, Shahzada and Suleman, were keen to take part but the boy was too young to go on the dive as OceanGate required passengers to be 18, so Christine planned to accompany her husband.
The pandemic delayed all plans, meaning S uleman was old enough by the time it was possible.
OceanGate waived a rule to allow Christine's daughter, 17-year-old Alina, to aboard the support ship. The family wanted to experience the dive together - So Christine stayed aboard the support vessel with Alina, allowing Shahzada and Suleman to take part together.
But the tragedy was nearly avoided after a few cancelled flights meant the father-son duo nearly missed the Titan expedition altogether.
The Dawoods flew to Toronto on June 14. But their flight to St. John’s, where they were due to board the vessel, was cancelled.
This gave them time to explore the city, but when the next day’s flight was delayed, they feared they would miss the Titanic trip altogether.
“We were actually quite worried, like, oh my god, what if they cancel that flight as well?” Ms Dawood said. “In hindsight, obviously, I wish they did.”
When the Titan lost contact with its support crew less than two hours into the descent, Ms Dawood said OceanGate Expeditions staff reassured her that communications problems were quite common.
He said she was told the vessel would abort its dive and bob back to the surface if the disruption lasted more than an hour.
“I was also looking out on the ocean, in case I could maybe see them surfacing,” she told the Times.
Suleman's mother said he was excited to go on the trip with his dad and took his Rubik's Cube on the Titan submersible because he wanted to break a world record.
"He said, 'I'm going to solve the Rubik's Cube 3,700 metres below sea at the Titanic'," Suleman's mother said.
She said Suleman carried a Rubik's Cube everywhere and could solve the puzzle in just 12 seconds.
"I miss them," she told the BBC, "I really, really miss them."
Along with the Dawood's, Oceangate company CEO Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet also lost their lives in the tragedy.
Since the tragedy, many issues have been raised about the company's safety procedures - such as the durability of the submersibles' carbon fiber material, its' lack of certification and failure to heed warnings after multiple failed dives.
The company behind the Titan submersible which imploded last month has confirmed it has stopped all operations.
The deep-sea vessel was on an expedition to the Titanic wreckage around 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, when it lost contact with the tour operator an hour and 45 minutes into the two-hour descent, with the vessel reported missing eight hours after communication was lost.
Speaking after evidence was recovered from the wreck, the Marine Board of Investigation’s (MBI) chairman Captain Jason Neubauer said: “I am grateful for the co-ordinated international and inter-agency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths.
“The evidence will provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy.
“There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.”
After the implosion, the other OceanGate co-founder, Guillermo Sohnlein, defended the firm – describing regulations surrounding visits to the Titanic as “tricky to navigate”.
