The university student who was killed in the tragic Titanic submarine ‘implosion’ was ‘terrified’ about the trip and only joined the crew to please his dad for Father’s Day, his heartbroken aunt has revealed.
Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, 19, were two of the five victims killed instantly when the OceanGate submersible suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ just 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic, the US Coast Guard announced on Thursday.
The other victims were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French Navy veteran Paul-Henri (PH) Nargeolet and British billionaire Hamish Harding.
Tragically, Azmeh Dawood – the older sister of Mr Dawood, who is vice chairman of Engro Corporation – told NBC News that her nephew ‘wasn’t very up for it’ but felt compelled to please his father, who was passionate about the 1912 shipwreck.
‘I am thinking of Suleman, who is 19, in there, just perhaps gasping for breath … It’s been crippling, to be honest,’ she told the US outlet from her home in Amsterdam.
She added: ‘I feel disbelief. It’s an unreal situation.’
Azmeh, who like the other anxious relatives were hoping for a miracle, continued: ‘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.’
She said she ‘personally found it kind of difficult to breathe thinking of them’, adding: ‘It’s been unlike any experience I’ve ever had’.
It comes after Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard revealed at a press conference today: ‘The implosion would have generated a significant, broadband sound that the sonar buoys would have picked up,’ explained.
It would have been an instant death for the men, some of whom had paid $250,000 each to see the famous shipwreck.
