Suleman Dawood did not want to go on the minivan-sized deep sea submersible to explore the shipwrecked Titanic on Sunday.
In fact, according to his paternal aunt, he was “terrified.”
But the 19-year-old, who had just finished his first year at Strathclyde Business School in Glasgow, Scotland, knew the dangerous expedition was important to Pakistani tycoon father, 49-year-old Shahzada Dawood. So even though he “wasn’t very up for it” and had expressed his concerns to another family member, Suleman joined his lifelong Titanic obsessive father and four other strangers on the $250,000-a-head voyage to the wreck, located 400 miles off Newfoundland this weekend.
“If you gave me a million dollars, I would not have gotten into the Titan,” Azmeh Dawood, Shahzada’s sister, told NBC on Thursday.
Dawood’s harrowing confession comes after the U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday confirmed that all five people aboard the Titan are believed to be dead after the missing vessel suffered a “catastrophic implosion.” Officials say the tail cone of the submarine was found about 1,600 feet from the bow of the RMS Titanic and that the “catastrophic loss of pressure chamber” would have killed all aboard instantly.
The tragic news comes after a days-long search for the vessel that lost contact with its support ship less than two hours into the expedition, which was organized by OceanGate Expeditions. Those aboard the boat included Suleman and his father; OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman Hamish Harding; and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
“I feel very bad that the whole world has had to go through so much trauma, so much suspense,” Dawood added. “I feel like I’ve been caught in a really bad film, with a countdown, but you didn’t know what you’re counting down to.”
For friends and family of Nargeolet, who was affectionately referred to as “Mr. Titanic” because of his reputation as a veteran explorer of the famous shipwreck, his decision to take a trip to see the site wasn’t unusual. The 77-year-old had already been on over 35 dives to the site and worked for RMS Titanic, which owns the salvage rights to the boat.
So when Nargeolet’s daughter, Sidone Nargeolet, learned that her father was among the five people in the missing submersible, she said she instantly filled with “a lot of stress, very mixed emotions.” Speaking to Reuters prior to Thursday’s grim confirmation about the Titan, Sidone said that her father knew “how to react to problems” in a submarine and that she was confident he was handling the situation well.
“Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman Dawood, and Stockton Rush.”
Engro Corporation Limited/Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
”What he liked the most was to be in a submarine, [near] the Titanic,” she said. “He is where he really loved being. I would prefer him [dying] at a place where he is happy.”
Matt Tulloch, who met Nargeolet while working for RMS Titanic in the 1990s, stressed to the Connecticut New Times on Thursday that his friend was “a consummate professional and in many ways, a legend in exploration.”
“Our hearts are with the families and friends of those aboard the submersible as we are collectively and individually mourning the loss of our long-term employee and colleague Paul Henri ‘PH’ Nargeolet,” the RMS Titan organization said in a Thursday statement. “The maritime world has lost an iconic and inspirational leader in deep-sea exploration, and we have lost a dear and treasured friend.”
The Explorers Club, where Harding and Nargelot were members, also issued a statement on Thursday saying their “hearts are broken” over the “tragic news” of the failed expedition. Prior to the news of the imploded Titan, the stepson of Harding also took to social media to discuss his feelings about the submarine.
“This whole situation is a fucking nightmare though, everything about it, especially what Hamish is going through down there, it’s just fucking God awful,” he said. “I haven’t slept in days, it’s not about me, obviously just too worried about my mom and the situation.”
Denise Reiss, who had been on several expeditions with Rush before, also paid tribute to the OceanGate CEO. In multiple posts on Facebook, Reiss—wife of former “The Simpson’s” showrunner Michael Reiss, called Rush “careful and brilliant, tackling the limits of what was possible.”
“We are grievously sorry for his death on the way down to Titanic,” she added.
“Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet.”
Jannicke Mikkelsen via Reuters/HarperCollins France via Reuters
For Mohad Malik, the tragic news of Thursday was a grim confirmation of what he already believed about the fate of his friend, Shahzada Dawood.
“I kind of had accepted it already..I wasn’t optimistic,” Malik, a 30-year-old based in London, told The Daily Beast. “I thought it would end up being more of a recovery mission, not a rescue mission.”
He also noted that others close to the Dawoods felt a sense of false hope after search crews heard underwater “banging noises” on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Officials on Thursday, however, said that the noises didn’t come from near where the Titan was eventually found and there was no connection to the submarine.
“My parents have spoken to the family, and they were very optimistic for a while, and now they’re shattered,” Malik added. “They were obviously shell-shocked when it first happened. And then they heard the news about the noises.”
Malik also paid tribute to his family friend, who he was fortunate enough to have forged his own relationship with. Noting that Shahzada was “one of those guys that really think outside the box …like an Elon Musk of Pakistan,” he added that the businessman took pride in being very close with his teenage son.
“He was very close to his son. He dropped him off to university last year, and the entire family was very close knit,” Malik added.
