Titan Sub Implosion: Coast Guard Report Reveals Who Is at Fault for Tragedy
Christine Dawood is sharing harrowing details about the aftermath of a devastating tragedy.
Nearly three years after the OceanGate Expedition vessel imploded with five passengers onboard, including Christine’s husband Shahzada Dawood and their son Suleman Dawood, she recalled the heartbreaking way she received her family’s remains following the Titan submersible tragedy.
“We didn’t get the bodies for nine months,” Christine told The Guardian in an interview published April 25. “Well, when I say bodies, I mean the slush that was left. They came in two small boxes, like shoeboxes.”
“There wasn’t much they could find,” she added of the remains, noting they were tested by the United States Coast Guard. “They have a big pile they can’t separate, all mixed DNA, and they asked if I wanted some of that, too. But I said no, just what you know is Suleman and Shahzada.”
While June will mark the three-year anniversary of the tragedy, in which Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Stockton Rush were also killed 90 minutes into an expedition to reach the Titanic wreckage, Christine said she’s kept both her husband’s study and son’s room exactly as they left them.
She also shared that Suleman’s 9,090-piece Lego Titanic model remains untouched in a glass display in her kitchen.
“People are always a bit shocked to see it,” she explained. “But what was I going to do? Break it up? Hide it away? Suleman put all those hours in. He’d been fascinated with the Titanic since we went to a huge exhibition when we lived in Singapore.”
Courtesy of the Dawood family
Amid her mourning journey, Christine—who currently lives in Surrey, UK, with her 20-year-old daughter—shared that she’s “learned” to give her grief “attention.” But it isn’t easy.
“I go into Suleman’s room. Sometimes I find the cat sleeping on his pillow and I sit on the bed and let the grief come,” she admitted. “And after a while I can put the grief away until the next time it gets too much.”
“I’ve worked a lot on my grief for Suleman, but I’m only now starting to grieve for my husband,” she added of her son and husband, who died at ages 19 and 43, respectively. “Publicly they are always put together, but they are two different relationships. Two very different pains.”
Read on to learn more about Christine’s husband and son, along with the other three Titan passengers who lost their lives.
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
Stockton Rush
On June 18, 2023, a deep-sea submersible Titan, operated by the U.S.-based company OceanGate Expeditions and carrying five people on a voyage to the wreck of the Titanic, was declared missing. Following a five-day search, the U.S. Coast Guard announced at a June 22 press conference that the vessel suffered a “catastrophic implosion” that killed all five passengers on board.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was the pilot of the Titan. The entrepreneur—who founded the research company in 2009 in Everett, Wash.—had long been interested in exploration. Rush, 61, previously said he dreamed of becoming the first person on Mars and once said that he’d “like to be remembered as an innovator.”
In addition to leading voyages to see the remnants of the Titanic, Rush had another surprising connection to the historic 1912 event: His wife Wendy Rush is the great-great-granddaughter of a couple who died on the Titanic, Ida and Isidor Straus.
Action Aviation via AP
Hamish Harding
British billionaire Hamish Harding confirmed he was a part of the mission in a June 17 Instagram post, a day before the submersible went into the water and disappeared.
“I am proud to finally announce that I joined @oceangateexped for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic,” he wrote. “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
Harding—the chairman of aircraft company Action Aviation—said the group had started steaming from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada and was planning to start dive operations around 4 a.m. on June 18. The 58-year-old added, “Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do.”
His past explorations included traveling to the deepest part of the ocean in the Mariana Trench, telling Gulf News in 2021, “It was an incredibly hostile environment. To travel to parts of the Challenger Deep where no human had ever been before was truly remarkable.”
The Dubai-based businessman also circumnavigated the Earth by plane with the One More Orbit project and, last year, took a trip to space on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. Harding shared his love for adventure with his son Giles, described as a “teen explorer” on his Instagram.
Courtesy of the Dawood family
Shahzada Dawood & Son Suleman Dawood
Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, both British citizens, were also among the victims.
Their family is one of the wealthiest in Pakistan, with Shahzada Dawood serving as the vice chairman of Engro Corporation, per The New York Times. His son was studying at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.
Shahzada’s sister Azmeh Dawood told NBC News that Suleman had expressed reluctance about going on the voyage, informing a relative that he “wasn’t very up for it” and felt “terrified” about the trip to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, but ultimately went to please his father, a Titanic fan, for Father’s Day.
The Dawood Foundation mourned their deaths in a statement to the website, saying, “It is with profound grief that we announce the passing of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. Our beloved sons were aboard OceanGagte’s Titan submersible that perished underwater. Please continue to keep the departed souls and our family in your prayers during this difficult period of mourning.”
JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images
Paul-Henri Nargeolet
As for the fifth member, a representative for French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet told the New York Times that he was a passenger on the Titan, with Harding also referencing him on Instagram as a member of the team.
The Times described him as a maritime expert who was previously part of the French Navy. The 71-year-old was a bonafide Titanic specialist and has traveled to the wreckage 35 times before. Nargeolet served as the director of RMS Titanic, Inc., a company that researches, salvages and displays artifacts from the famed ship, per the outlet.
Alongside fellow passenger Hamish Harding, he was a member of The Explorers Club, founded in 1904.
OceanGate Expeditions via AP
The Titan
As Harding noted in his post, the submersible—named Titan—was a part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour that explores the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, which infamously sank in 1912.
The company expressed its sympathies to the families of the victims. “These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
Leave a comment