The mother of the 19-year-old passenger aboard the doomed Titan submersible said in her first interview since authorities confirmed its “catastrophic” implosion that the teenager had been excited to go on the deep-sea expedition.
Suleman Dawood and his father, Shahzada Dawood, were killed alongside three other men on the OceanGate vessel, which is believed to have been 3,500 meters below sea level when it went missing last Sunday. An international search-and-rescue effort came to an end on Thursday after debris was discovered on the ocean floor.
Christine Dawood told the BBC that she had intended to join her husband on the submersible before their plans were scuttled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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She explained she “stepped back” to allow her son to go on the voyage, “because he really wanted to go.”
On Father’s Day, Dawood and her daughter climbed onto the Polar Prince, the Titan’s support vessel, to accompany Suleman and Shahzada out to the launch point on the open ocean. The family said a cheery goodbye, hugging and cracking jokes in the moments before the submersible was sealed, she recalled.
“I was really happy for them because both of them, they really wanted to do that for a very long time,” Dawood said.
Her comments were in stark contrast to those made on Thursday by Shahzada’s older sister, who told NBC News that her nephew had been “terrified” leading up to the trip. The aunt, who said she’d fallen out of touch with her businessman brother in recent years, explained that Suleman “wasn’t very up for it,” but had agreed to go on the trip to please his father.
A Friday statement by the Engro Corporation, the sprawling Pakistani business conglomerate of which Shahzada was vice chairman, emphasized their close bond.
“The relationship between Shahzada and Suleman was a joy to behold; they were each other’s greatest supporters and cherished a shared passion for adventure and exploration of all the world had to offer them,” the statement read.
Christine Dawood told the BBC that her husband, a scion of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest business families, had enjoyed “a childlike excitement” about the world around him.
Her son had a similar temperament, going so far as to bring a Rubik’s Cube with him on the submersible, intending to solve it “3,700 meters below sea at the Titanic,” Dawood said.
Just prior to his death, Suleman had completed his first year as a business student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Engro’s statement noted his love of Rubik’s Cubes and that, like his father, he loved science fiction.
“I miss them,” Dawood said. “I really, really miss them.”
In addition to Suleman and Shahzada, the other victims aboard the Titan were identified as Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s founder and chief executive, Hamish Harding, a British businessman, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French explorer and maritime expert.
The U.S. Coast Guard announced Sunday that it had launched an investigation into the submersible disaster, with the goal of determining the cause of the implosion. Investigators will also be able to recommend if civil or criminal charges should be brought in the matter, an official said at a news conference.
