Titanic sub boss Stockton Rush flew to London to personally reassure businessman and his son that doomed vessel WAS safe just months before five were killed, victims’ heartbroken wife and mother reveals
- The Titan submersible made its final voyage on June 18 with five people on board
- Three months prior, CEO Stockton Rush told the Dawood family it was safe
- He reportedly thought going down in the sub was ‘safer than crossing the street’
The boss of the doomed Titan submarine flew to London to personally reassure a British-Pakistani billionaire and his son that the vessel was safe, it has emerged.
Three months before the voyage, OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush and his wife met with Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman to brief them on their upcoming journey to the bottom of the Atlantic.
The billionaire’s grieving wife Christine Dawood claims that while Mr Rush spoke to the family about the submersible’s design and safety, the technical aspects of the trip still remained unclear.
‘That engineering side, we just had no idea,’ Mrs Dawood told The New York Times. ‘I mean, you sit in a plane without knowing how the engine works.’
Mr Rush reportedly believed going to the depths of the Atlantic in the Titan was ‘safer than crossing the street’, despite having been warned by dozens of experts in 2018 that his company’s ‘experimental’ approaches could be ‘catastrophic’.
The CEO – who considered himself to be more of a scientist than a salesman despite much of his efforts being focused on marketing the sub trips – was also begged in 2019 to suspend operations after a submersible expert heard cracking sounds during one of the Titan’s dives in the Bahamas.
OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush (pictured) personally visited Shahzada Dawood and his family in London to reassure them that taking the Titan submersible to the Titanic shipwreck was safe, it has emerged
Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, are seen just before they boarded the Titan submersible on June 18 – hours later the trip would end in tragedy
It has been claimed that Mr Rush believed going to the depths of the Atlantic in the Titan submersible (pictured) was ‘safer than crossing the street’
Mr Dawood and Suleman were among the five people who perished on the $250,000-a-head trip to the Titanic shipwreck.
His devastated widow claims Mr Rush and his wife Wendy, where the Dawoods lived, in February to brief them on the journey.
The couple met with their family at a café close to Waterloo, where Mr Rush is understood to have provided details about the journey.
He shared what it would be like to go down in the sub, but Mrs Dawood said the technical aspects of the trip had not been made clear to the family.
It has now emerged that Mr Rush had been made aware about potential dangers about the journey.
The chair of the Marine Technology Society’s manned underwater vehicles committee had drafted a letter to Mr Rush in 2018 alleging there were potentially ‘catastrophic’ consequences associated with OceanGate’s approach, The Times reported. Dozens of experts had signed the letter.
The following year, an expert warned Mr Rush that he had heard cracking sounds during a dive and urged him to suspend the Titan’s operations. But, after making revisions, the CEO continued to take customers onboard.
Just 12 weeks after the CEO’s visit, the British-based family led by Mr Dawood, an heir to one of Pakistan’s most successful business dynasties, set off on the doomed trip.
Mrs Dawood has described how she and her daughter Alina, 17, were on board the Titan’s mothership, Polar Prince, and waved Shahzada and Suleman off on the adventure that fell over Father’s Day weekend in June.
Sharing the final picture of the father-son duo before they boarded the submersible, Mrs Dawood unveiled that the pair spent their final moments before the Titan imploded listening to their favourite music in total darkness to conserve power while watching bioluminescent creatures in the deep.
She also has revealed that her family very nearly missed the trip.
The teenager took a Rubik’s Cube with him, with the hope of breaking the world record for completing it under water.
The British-based father and son were incredibly excited to be embarking on the trip, said Christine Dawood
Shahzada Dawood, 48, (right) and his 19-year-old son Suleman (left) were among the five people who died when the submersible imploded. Mr Dawood’s wife Christine shared that although Mr Rush had briefed them on the journey, the technical aspects remained unclear
The Titan submersible is seen being towed out to sea on board its raft
The Dawooods flew to Toronto on June 14 but their flight to St John’s to join the expedition was cancelled so they had an extra day to explore the city.
Their flight the following day was then delayed and they feared they might not make it to the Titan at all.
‘We were actually quite worried, like, oh my god, what if they cancel that flight as well? In hindsight, obviously, I wish they did’, Mrs Dawood said.
She revealed that her husband was so excited he was ‘like a vibrating toddler’ in the run-up to the trip.
Mrs Dawood said they became fascinated with the Titanic after visiting an exhibition in Singapore in 2012, the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.
In 2019, the family visited Greenland and was intrigued by the glaciers that sheathed into icebergs.
Mrs Dawood said that her husband had also lapped up the on-board stories of P.H. Nargeolet, one of the world’s foremost Titanic experts, who was among those who died on the doomed journey.
She said the Frenchman gave a presentation about his 37 previous dives to the Titanic and told the group a story about how he had once been ‘stuck down there for three days and the sub was out of communication.’
She recalled how Mr Dawood turned to her and said: ‘Oh, my god, this is so cool.’
She added: ‘He was lapping everything up. He had this big glow on his face talking about all this nerdy stuff.’
Mrs Dawood shared how she originally had found an advert for the OceanGate trip and had intended to make the trip with her husband.
But their journey was delayed due to the pandemic, however, and by the time they were able to make it, Suleman was old enough to go instead of her.
The teenager took a Rubik’s Cube with him, with the hope of breaking the world record for completing it under water.
Mr Dawood and his son (pictured together) were heirs to the great Dawood business dynasty and amongst the richest people in Pakistan – although they lived in Surrey, England
The five were hoping to see the 111-year-old wreckage of the Titanic
OceanGate began offering trips to the wreckage in 2021
The Dawooods flew to Toronto on June 14 but their flight to St John’s to join the expedition was cancelled so they had an extra day to explore the city.
The Titan began its dive to the Titanic wreckage at 8am on June 18. One hour and 45 minutes into the dive, at 9.45am, contact was lost.
It is now known the US Navy registered the sound of an implosion at that point. Five days later, debris from the sub was found on the sea bed, 1,600 feet from the Titanic.
Those on board – the CEO of the company behind the expedition, Stockton Rush, 61; French Titanic expert P.H. Nargeolet, 77; 58-year-old British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding; and father and son Shahzada Dawood, 48, and Suleman Dawood, 19 – were likely killed instantly, without any idea what was happening.
Mrs Dawood said that they arrived on the mothership at the harbour in St John’s, Newfoundland, in the middle of the night of June 15, and set sail for the dive site.
She said there were briefings at 7am and 7pm, with scientific talks and discussion about the wreckage and the expedition.
Those preparing to make the descent were told to wear thick socks and a hat as it could get cold at the depths, and stick to a ‘low-residue diet’ the day before the dive, with no coffee the morning of one.
There was no toilet on board, and only a bottle or camp-style toilet behind a curtain.
The passengers were told to load up their favourite music onto their phones, to play via a Bluetooth speaker – although Mr Rush banned country music.
He also warned them that the descent would be in pitch black because the headlights were turned off to save battery power for when they made it down to the sea bed.
They were told they would likely see bioluminescent creatures, however.
Shahzada Dawood, 48, (pictured with his wife Christine) was a UK-based board member of the Prince’s Trust charity
Five people were onboard, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding (pictured)
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) was in the sub along with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition
The submersible, Titan, is pictured descending. It was the only five person sub capable of reaching Titanic
On the morning of June 18, the passengers had to be on deck at 5am.
Mrs Dawood said she was impressed by the professionalism of those on deck.
‘It was like a well-oiled operation — you could see they had done this before many times,’ she said.
Mr Dawood and Suleman had their OceanGate flight suits as well as waterproof trousers, an orange waterproof jacket, steel-toed boots, life vests and helmets.
They stopped to be weighed, as required, and posed for a photo.
‘I’m looking quite fat,’ said Mr Dawood. ‘I’m boiling up already.’
Suleman went down the stairs to get into the motorised raft that would shuttle the passengers to the floating platform on which Titan was tied.
Mr Dawood found getting to the platform less easy.
‘He needed an extra hand to go down the stairs in all this gear because the boots were very clunky,’ she said.
‘And Alina and I were like, “Oh, God, I hope that he doesn’t fall into the water.”
All five passengers climbed into the sub, and divers closed the hatch. Someone with a ratchet tightened all the bolts.
Crews manoeuvred the Titan underwater and released it from the platform.
‘It was a good morning,’ she said.
OceanGate’s submersible was designed by the company to travel almost 13,000ft below sea level to the wreck of the Titanic – but ‘has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death’
Later that morning, Mrs Dawood overheard someone saying that communication with Titan had been lost.
She went to the bridge, where a team had been monitoring the descent, and was told not to worry because communications could be unreliable.
She was told that, if there was an issue, the mission would abort and the sub would drop the weights on board and ascend to the surface.
Someone then told her they did not know where the Titan was.
‘I was also looking out on the ocean, in case I could maybe see them surfacing,’ she said.
She was on board the mothership when the news came, five days later, that the debris from the sub had been found.
Source: Read Full Article