Titan sub-disaster: Victim’s wife reveals that it was husband’s lifelong dream to see the Titanic
The wife of one of the victims of the Titan sub-disaster has said seeing the Titanic was the “lifelong dream” of her husband, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and that he was “like a child” before she met their son. set out on the doomed expedition.
Christine Dawood also paid tribute to her son, 19-year-old Suleman, a student at Strathclyde University who took his Rubik’s Cube on a journey in hopes of breaking the world record for solving the puzzle at the greatest depth.
Christine and her daughter were aboard Titan’s mothership, the Polar Prince, when news broke that they had lost communication with the submarine shortly after it began sinking at 8:00am on Sunday, June 18.
A major search and rescue mission was launched that lasted for days, and while her daughter held on to hope all along, Christine said she “lost hope when we passed the 96 hour mark.”
Then I lost hope. Then I sent the message to my family on land, I said, ‘I’m preparing for the worst.’
Ending her interview with the BBC, the heartbroken mother said with tears in her eyes: ‘I miss them. I really miss them very much.’
Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman died on the submarine Titan
Christine Dawood paid tribute to her son and husband in an interview with the BBC
Five people died aboard the submarine Titan after a ‘catastrophic implosion’ 400 meters from the bow of the Titanic
According to the US Coast Guard, British billionaire Shahzada and his son Suleman were two of five victims who died instantly when the submarine suffered a “catastrophic implosion” just 500 meters from the bow of the Titanic.
Christine revealed that she planned to go with her husband to view the wreckage of the Titanic in the OceanGate submarine, but their trip was canceled due to the Covid pandemic.
“Then I stepped back and gave them room to set [Suleman] because he really wanted to go,” she said.
After contact with the ship was lost, Christine and her daughter Alina, 17, waited for news at the site where Titan was last seen during the search and rescue mission.
“We had a lot of hope, that was the only thing that got us through because we hoped,” she said.
In addition to her husband and son, three others died aboard Titan: OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush, 61, British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77, a former French Navy diver and veteran Titanic diver.
Shahzada Dawood, 48, (pictured with his wife Christine) was a UK-based board member of the Prince’s Trust charity. She said his enthusiasm “brought out the best” in her
Suleman Dawood, 19, was the youngest victim of the Titan sub-tragedy. He is pictured with his mother, Christine
Billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, who lost his life aboard Titan, is pictured looking out to sea before boarding the submarine
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate expedition, also lost their lives on Titan
Christine said those who were above the water tried to remain hopeful, saying to themselves, “There were so many actions the people on this sub could take to get to the surface…they would drop the weights, then the agreement would being slower, we were constantly looking at the surface. That hope was there.’
She and her daughter initially had hope after initially failing to return.
She said: ‘We all thought they were just going to surface, so the shock was delayed for about 10 hours.
“By the time they were supposed to be back up there was a time… when they’d be back up on the surface and when that time was over came the real shock, not the shock but the worry and the not so good feelings started.”
Despite the bleak outlook as the hunt continued, she said her teenage daughter never lost hope of saving her father and older brother.
“My daughter didn’t lose hope until the call to the Coast Guard when they basically told us they’d found wreckage.”
Alina’s mother said, ‘she’s such an incredible young woman, she’s so self-aware.
“She believes in the science, and she really believes, like when you get on a plane, that the science, the mechanics, the engineering will work.”
Christine said at 96 that she tried “very hard” not to let her daughter see that she had lost hope.
After news broke Thursday that wreckage from the submarine had been found, the family returned to St John’s in Newfoundland, Canada, on Saturday.
On Sunday, they held a funeral prayer for Shahzada and Suleman, which Christine said had “helped.”
She paid tribute to her son, admitting that he had been a “mom’s boy” but that he also “loved his father.”
When asked what the family’s last words were to each other, she told the BBC: “We just hugged and joked, because Shahzada was so excited to go down, he was like a little kid.
“He had the ability of youthfulness, they were both so excited.”
Christine and Shahzada met in college, she said, when she spoke no English.
She recalled how the history buff knew more about the history of her native Germany than she did, and was obsessed with documentaries.
“He would make us all watch David Attenborough, and the kids loved it.
‘His enthusiasm brought out the best in me and that’s how I really learned to love history. He was really able to inspire and motivate others through his knowledge.’
Her son, she said, was practical and intellectual and wouldn’t go anywhere without his Rubik’s Cube — which he taught himself to solve in just 12 seconds.
‘Suleman made a Lego Titanic of 10,000 pieces. He applied for a world record because he wanted to solve a Rubik’s Cube at the deepest point.
The OceanGate Titan submarine sank about 400 miles southeast of St John’s, Newfoundland, on Sunday, June 18, at 8 a.m., according to the U.S. Coast Guard. It lost contact at 9:45 a.m. but was not reported to the Coast Guard until 5:40 p.m.
Although his application was rejected, they still planned to film the attempt, with Suleman saying, “I’m going to solve the Rubik’s Cube 12,000 feet under the sea off the Titanic.”
Mrs. Dawood said she and her daughter have vowed to try and finish the Rubik’s Cube in Suleman’s honor, and that she intends to continue her husband’s work.
She said: ‘He was involved in so many things, he helped so many people and I think Alina and I really want to carry on that legacy and give him that platform once his work has continued and it’s also very important to my daughter.
“Alina and I said we’re going to learn how to solve the Rubik’s cube. That will be a challenge for us, because we are very bad at it, but we will learn.’