The mother of the teenager who died in the Titan sub disaster with his multi-millionaire father had originally intended to go on the doomed voyage but gave her spot to her son because he ‘really wanted to go’.
Christine Dawood and her husband, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, had initially booked a trip to the Titanic wreck for themselves but had to cancel their trip due to the coronavirus pandemic, she told the BBC.
She said that when their family reserved spots on this year’s OceanGate Expeditions mission, she ‘stepped back’ because her 19-year-old son Suleman ‘really wanted to go’.
The mother-of-two revealed she had been ‘really happy’ for Shahzada and Suleman to embark on this journey together, adding that the teen had planned to solve the Rubik’s cube while 3,700 meters below sea.
Christine and her daughter Alina, 17, were onboard Titan’s mothership, the Polar Prince, when news came through that they had lost communications shortly after it began its descent at 8am on Sunday, June 18.
A major search and rescue mission was launched and went on for days, and while her daughter clung onto hope throughout, Christine said she ‘lost hope when we passed the 96 hours mark’.
Christine Dawood and her husband, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, had initially booked a trip to the Titanic wreck for themselves but had to cancel their trip due to the coronavirus pandemic. The married couple are pictured together
Christine said that when their family reserved spots on this year’s OceanGate Expeditions mission, she ‘stepped back’ because her 19-year-old son Suleman ‘really wanted to go’. She and Suleman are pictured together
UK-based businessman Shahzada and his son Suleman were two of the five victims killed instantly when the submersible suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ just 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic, according to the US Coast Guard.
Christine revealed that she had planned to go with her husband to view the Titanic wreck in the OceanGate sub, but that their trip was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.
‘Then I stepped back and gave them space to set [Suleman] up, because he really wanted to go,’ she said.
‘I was really happy for them because both of them, they really wanted to do that for a very long time.’
Christine shared how she and Alina hugged and joked with Shahzada and Suleman before the pair entered the submersible.
Suleman, a student at Strathclyde University, had taken his Rubik’s Cube on the trip as he hoped to break the world record for solving the puzzle at the greatest depth, she revealed.
‘He said: “I’m going to solve the Rubik’s Cube 3,700 meters below sea at the Titanic”,’ Christine recalled.
Christine Dawood revealed she had been ‘really happy’ for Shahzada and Suleman to embark on this journey together, adding that the teen had planned to solve the Rubik’s cube while 3,700 meters below sea
Suleman, (pictured) a student at Strathclyde University, had taken his Rubik’s Cube on the trip as he hoped to break the world record for solving the puzzle at the greatest depth. Christine recalled: ‘He said: “I’m going to solve the Rubik’s Cube 3,700 meters below sea at the Titanic”‘
Suleman Dawood, 19, was the youngest victim of the Titan sub tragedy. He is pictured with his father, Vice-Chairman of Engro Corporation Limited Shahzada Dawood
After contact was lost with the vessel, Christine and Alina waited for news at the site where Titan was last seen during the search and rescue mission.
‘We had loads of hope, that was the only thing that got us through it because we were hoping,’ she said.
Ending her interview with the BBC, the heartbroken mother said through tears: ‘I miss them. I really, really miss them.’
As well as her husband and son, three others died on board Titan: OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush, 61, British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77, a former French navy diver and experienced Titanic diver.
Christine said those above water tried to remain hopeful, telling themselves: ‘There were so many actions the people on this sub can do in order to surface… they would drop the weights, then the assent would be slower, we were constantly looking at the surface. There was that hope.’
She and her daughter held out hope to begin with after being they did not initially return.
She said: ‘We all thought they are just going to come up so that shock was delayed by about 10 hours or so.
‘By the time they were supposed to be up again, there was a time…. when they were supposed to be up on the surface again and when that time passed the real shock, not shock but the worry and the not so good feelings started.’
OceanGate’s Titan sub submerged at 8am on Sunday, June 18, around 400 miles southeast of St John’s, Newfoundland, according to the US Coast Guard. It lost contact at 9.45am but it wasn’t reported to the Coast Guard until 5.40pm
Billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, who lost his life onboard Titan, is pictured looking out to sea before boarding the submersible
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition, also lost their lives on Titan
Despite the bleak outlook as the hunt dragged on, she said her teenage daughter never lost hope of her father and older brother’s rescue.
‘My daughter didn’t lose hope until the call with the Coastguard when they basically informed us that they had found debris.’
Alina’s mother said: ‘she is such an incredible young woman, she is so self-aware.
‘She believes in science, and she really believe, just like if you board a plane, that the science, the mechanics, the engineering will work.’
Christine said at 96 hours she tried ‘really hard’ not to show her daughter that she had lost hope.
After news emerged on Thursday that debris from the sub 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’.
Paying tribute to her son, she admitted he had been a ‘mother’s boy’ but that he also ‘loved his father’.
When asked what the family’s last words to each other were, she told the BBC: ‘We just hugged and joked actually, because Shahzada was so excited to go down, he was like a little child.
‘He had this ability of childhood excitement, they were both so excited.’
Christine and Shahzada met at university, she said, when she didn’t speak any English.
She recalled how the history buff knew more about her native Germany’s history than she did, and that he was obsessed with documentaries.
‘He would make us all watch David Attenborough, and the children loved it.
‘His enthusiasm brought the best out of me, and so I really learned to love history as well. He was really able to, through his knowledge, inspire and motivate others.’
Her son, she said, was practical and intellectual, and wouldn’t go anywhere without his Rubik’s Cube – which he taught himself to solve it in just 12 seconds.
‘Suleman did a 10,000-piece lego Titanic. He applied for a world record because he wanted to solve a Rubik’s Cube at the deepest point.
Five people lost their lives onboard the Titan submersible after it suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic
While his application was rejected, they were still planning to film the attempt, with Suleman saying ‘I’m going to solve the Rubik’s Cube 3,700 meters below sea at the Titanic.’
Mrs Dawood said she and her daughter have vowed to try to learn to finish the Rubik’s Cube in Suleman’s honour, and 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 continue that legacy and give him that platform when his work has continued and it’s quite important for my daughter as well.
‘Alina and I said we are going learn how to solve the Rubik’s cube. That’s going to be a challenge for us because we are really bad at it but we are going to learn it.’
