Families of occupants of the submarine Titan in Pakistan and Britain have demonstrated after wreckage was found near the wreckage of the Titanic. “It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood,” the Dawood Foundation Pakistan said on Friday. “We offer our deepest condolences to the families of the other passengers on the submersible Titan,” Shahzada’s parents, Hussain and Kulsum Dawood, said in a statement.
Shahzada Dawood, 48, and her son Suleman, 19, were aboard the mini-submarine that the US Coast Guard and expedition organizers said was plunging into the wreckage of the “Titanic” to a depth of about 3,800 meters, was destroyed in a “catastrophic implosion”. After days of feverish search and rescue operations, the Coast Guard announced the discovery of a “debris field” on Thursday.
“We are extremely grateful to everyone involved in the rescue efforts,” the Dawoods wrote in the family foundation statement. “Your tireless commitment has been a source of strength for us during this time.” Shahzada Dawood was from Pakistan but lived in the UK with his wife Christine, son Suleman and daughter Alina.
The family is very prominent in their home country: Shahzada’s father, Hussain Dawood, is one of Pakistan’s richest men and head of the Engro conglomerate, which produces fertilizers and chemicals, among other things, but also invests in the energy.
Also on board the “Titan” were the head of OceanGate Expeditions operator Stockton Rush, French “Titanic” expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet and British businessman and adventurer Hamish Harding.
Harding’s family and his company Action Aviation said they joined in their grief with other families “who also lost loved ones on the ‘Titan’ submersible”. Harding, 58, was a “passionate explorer who lived his life for his family, his business and the next adventure.”
The father of two made a living selling private jets and entered the Guinness Book of World Records with three entries. In July 2019, he was part of a team that completed the world’s fastest circumnavigation by plane over both poles in 46 hours, 40 minutes and 22 seconds. In March 2021, he and a researcher plunged into the depths of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific known to date. This mission was the longest and farthest at such depth. Last year he flew into space as a tourist.
The “Titan” left on Sunday for a tourist diving trip to the wreck of the “Titanic” that sank in 1912 to a depth of about 3,800 meters. After an hour and a half, contact with the escort ship was broken and since then there has been no trace of the approximately 6.5 meter long submarine.