Christine Dawood is opening up about the tragic OceanGate Titan implosion that claimed the lives of her husband and son.
Nearly three years after the submersible set off on a journey into the depths of the North Atlantic ocean to view the Titanic wreckage with five passengers aboard, the grieving wife and mother of Shahzada, 48, and Suleman, 19, is speaking out.
The Early Days
During a wide ranging interview with The Guardian published over the weekend, Christina reflected on the early days of her family’s interest in joining the expedition:
“It was a s**tload of money — $500,000 for two seats! The kind of money I’d expect a house for.”
However, Shahzada descends from one of the wealthiest families in Pakistan, so money wasn’t much of an issue to him.
Reflecting on doing her “due diligence” ahead of the expedition, Christina revealed:
“I didn’t find a single civilian submersible accident. That was good enough for me. I hardly knew OceanGate, so my trust was based in Quintessentially.”
Quintessentially has since clarified that they never had a commercial relationship with OceanGate, nor promoted their expeditions publicly or recommended them to members. They did note, however, that services they provide to members are confidential, but “will continue to be supportive to the Dawood family.”
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In February 2023, Christina and Shahzada met with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and his wife Wendy, the company’s director of communications… and from that meeting, red flags already began to present themselves. Christina recalled:
“We had never even been snorkeling. And Shahzada got so wrapped up in Rush’s stories. But Wendy was very quiet. Then the conversation went to communication between the sub and the ship. And Stockton says, ‘Yeah, sometimes we lose contact.’ I noticed Wendy’s whole body go rigid. ‘We don’t like it when that happens,’ she said to him. ‘If you don’t tell us where you are, we worry.’”
That’s not a very reassuring sign… Christina continued:
“I felt the dynamic between them; she couldn’t get through to him. I think she saw the risks; she saw the potential that there was something not quite right. He just ignored her.”
How awful.
It wasn’t until after the submersible tragically imploded that Christina discovered there were multiple past dives that had been aborted and a slew of safety and technical concerns that were ignored — including Rush refusing to have the Titan inspected as he believed the lengthy process “stifled innovation.”*
*Note: If that phrase about stifling innovation sounds familiar, it’s because he’s not the only guy who’s scoffed at safety inspections and other regulations in the name of “innovation” — countless billionaires and tech bros today do the same thing and try to influence legislation to go their way, but regulations and safety inspections save real lives. They should never be avoided.
The Expedition
On June 14, 2023, the Dawood family set out on their journey to the diving point:
“We’d all been so busy. And this was the start of a family adventure, that’s how we saw it.”
They boarded the Polar Prince, a ship that took them 400 miles out into the North Atlantic to reach the Titanic waters — and that’s when more red flags began to pop up. Instead of the ritzy cruises with comfy linens the family was accustomed to, the Polar Prince was an old ice breaker not even technically designed to transport passengers, according to the outlet. Instead of the Horizon Arctic, which the Titan had previously been transported on in the years prior, the submersible was towed behind the inferior Polar Prince, vulnerable to rough open ocean waves — all because Rush’s company was reportedly running low on funds. Again, unbeknownst to Christine until after the fact. She reflected:
“This was the roughest we’d ever travelled. I’m almost 50 and you put me in a bunk bed with scratchy bed sheets! Cruise ships have very nice stabilisers, and you pay $500,000 for this?”
She continued:
“We didn’t have much time to think or to get too apprehensive. We were on the ship two days getting out there and by that time I was so seasick. So when the crew said the weather had come good [and that] the dive was on, my plan was to see them off then try to sleep until they came up.”
Shahzada and Suleman were adorned with custom jumpsuits with their names etched into the fabric as they joined Rush, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who had previously been aboard five times, on the 22-foot submarine.
Christine reflected on her final moments with Shahzada and Suleman:
“It was one of those occasions where you go into dark humour. We were talking about crashes. I remember Hamish saying how he’d never travel on a helicopter — he thought they were too dangerous. Suleman had his Rubik’s Cube, because he was planning to get the record for solving it at the deepest depth ever. And we were giggling, because Shahzada is clumsy and when he was going down the stairs he was wobbling a bit. I waved. And that was it. They got into a dinghy and sped off. It went very fast, the goodbye.”
Then off the passengers went “on a dingy,” which transported them out to where the Titan was docked. Sadly, the final goodbye.
Things Go Wrong…
At around 11:00 a.m. that same day, the first in a line of mishaps occurred. Christine recalled hearing a crew member say:
“They’ve lost communications.”
However, they didn’t seem worried and reassured her everything was going to be OK:
“’Don’t worry, it’s not unusual.’ In that moment, what am I supposed to do? I felt trapped on that ship and I had no choice but to trust what they told me.”
Ughhh.
At that point, the crew was still confident the Titan would return to the surface by 3:00 p.m. as scheduled — however, the vicious reality that Christine’s loved ones were un-trackable couldn’t help but permeate her thoughts.
3:00 p.m. then came and went, with no sign of the Titan. And by 6:30 p.m., OceanGate’s mission director Kyle Bingham officially declared the submersible missing. And Christine tried to not fall to pieces:
“It’s like an avalanche. You see it coming. This is it, I’m going to be hit. But you’re on a cliff, so where can you go? I had to make a conscious choice. I knew I couldn’t let the emotions come. So, I grew wings, I flew away in my mind. That’s how I saved myself from the avalanche. I told myself they were stuck. But I was worried. Suleman is not … well, both my men, they’re not very good at being in the dark, and I knew it would be a very different darkness down there. Nothing. You literally can’t see a thing.”
Absolutely terrifying.
Reflecting on the stress that overtook the crew as she paced the ship, Christine said:
“There were lots of hushed voices. They stopped when I was near, but I overheard them saying their water could run out and maybe they’d drink the condensation on the sub walls through straws … I didn’t need those things in my head, so I tried not to listen. I deleted all news from my phone. I wasn’t even really aware of the oxygen countdown. All I’d been told by the crew was that they could last four days down there, no more.”
A full-on search and rescue mission was the next step as a media storm began to document the mission-gone-wrong. Christine recalled:
“The energy on the ship was complete denial. The crew were [acting] like nothing was happening.”
She said Bingham cited technical issues as the reason for the Titan going missing, but reassured her Rush and Nargeolet could get the submersible back on track — “It’s just taking time,” she remembered him saying.
“It did cross my mind that OceanGate had ulterior motivations about what they told us. They were just trying to avoid the truth. But I would have deteriorated a lot quicker without hope.”
Aboard the Polar Prince, the crew began doing whatever to try and instill hope:
“Ultimately, I think they wanted to distract people, keep everyone occupied. They wanted everyone onside, not to feed anything to the press. But jamming sessions? Am I really going to sit there and sing Kumbaya? I did try to give a movie a go, but when I got there it felt like an act of betrayal. Watching Wayne’s World while they are trapped in the dark did not sit well with me.”
What an impossible situation to navigate.
The Discovery
On June 22, the Horizon Arctic arrived at the terrifying scene and deployed a remote-controlled submersible capable of reaching the Titanic wreckage, where the Titan had gone. An hour and a half later, a scan of the seabed showed the unthinkable: mangled remains of the OceanGate sub. Christine recalled:
“Every indication at this point is that a catastrophic event has occurred with the Titan.”
She continued:
“My first thought was, thank God. When they said catastrophic, I knew Shahzada and Suleman didn’t even know about it. One moment they were there and the next they weren’t. Knowing they didn’t suffer has been so important. They’re gone, but the way they went does somehow make it easier.”
As has been reported, the Titan implosion occurred within a few milliseconds — a process quicker than the human mind can even perceive. It was after that realization that Christine found herself in what she called “the after.”
“In some ways, I was terrified to leave that weird bubble. What was I going to do with their stuff? Their bags? Shahzada’s clothes and things were in my cabin, so I packed his bags. But I didn’t pack Suleman’s. I couldn’t. Someone else did that.”
Over the next 18 months, an investigation was carried out to determine what went wrong, ultimately concluding the disaster was the direct result of Rush’s subpar engineering and testing.
“From the beginning, I had a lot of reasons to hate Stockton, but does that really help me? He died with them. If I’m angry with him, I’m giving him power, and I refuse to do that. I’m sure people will say I’m naive, but if I start to analyze every single thing, where does that lead me? So, I choose my own … not happiness but … I choose me, every day. If I don’t, I wouldn’t be here. I would have killed myself, for sure … It’s very hard. Being strong doesn’t mean you’re not feeling it.”
Since the wreck, Christine has experienced panic attacks and more:
“I have learned to give the grief attention. So 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. 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. Publicly they are always put together, but they are two different relationships. Two very different pains.”
Shahzada & Suleman’s Remains
After nine long months, Christine was finally presented with the grisly remains of her loved ones:
“We didn’t get the bodies for nine months. Well, when I say bodies, I mean the slush that was left. They came in two small boxes, like shoeboxes.”
The US Coast Guard conducted DNA tests on the “slush” to determine what belonged to who:
“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.”
How insane. We can barely wrap our minds around how traumatizing this all must be for Christine.
In addition to Suleman, she and Shahzada share a now-20-year-old daughter who chooses to remain out of the spotlight.
Elsewhere in the interview, Christine revealed she was originally supposed to board the Titan with her husband, but gave their son her ticket as he was an avid Titanic fan.
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She recalled advice she received from a Canadian Coast Guard official after four-day search:
“It was one of the Canadian Coast Guards. A very experienced woman with blond hair — I forget her name — gave me the best advice I’ve ever gotten: ‘Hindsight won’t help you, so don’t fall into that trap. Just because you know it now … you didn’t know it before.’ I’ve always remembered her telling me that. Suleman wanted to go and I was happy to give up the seat. I was happy for him to make memories with his father. I can’t change that.”
Our hearts continue to be with all those affected.
And next time someone tells you “innovation” comes before human lives, remind them of Christine Dawood’s story.
[Images via MEGA/WENN]