Chilling final photo shows father & son Titanic sub victims moments before they descend on doomed trip
A CHILLING final photo shows two of the tragic victims of the Titan submarine moments before the doomed trip.
Businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman posed up smiling right before they boarded the OceanGate vessel.
The father and son can be seen wearing bright orange suits, excited for their upcoming adventure, just a few hours before the sub’s “catastrophic implosion.”
It comes as the devastated wife of the UK-based billionaire revealed bone-chilling details about how the five passengers of Titan spent their final moments.
Christine Dawood, who gave up her spot on the submersible for her son, said the pair, alongside the rest of the group, were listening to music in the dark before their death.
The grieving mum recalled the last time she saw her son and husband was on a floating platform in the North Atlantic before the mission.
The sub lost communication during a dive into the Titanic wreck just an hour and 45 minutes after it submerged on June 18.
The Titan’s disappearance sparked a massive search operation in the Atlantic as the vessel had just 96 hours of life support.
But it later emerged that all five passengers died instantly following the implosion,” as major pieces of debris were found days later.
The victims included three Brits-Shahzada, his son Suleman and Hamish Harding, 55, as well as French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, and Stockton Rush, 61, the CEO of OceanGate.
Speaking to The New York Times, Christine told how she and her daughter Alina, 17, were on board the Polar Prince – the ship that carried the doomed Titan sub- before her husband and son left for their mission.
The mum also revealed that OceanGate boss Stockton Rush and his wife Wendy had travelled from the US to London to meet the family and convince them the trip to the Titanic wreckage was safe.
The OceanGate chief who bragged it was “safer than crossing the street” met with the Dawoods in a cafe in Waterloo in February to personally discuss the design and safety of the sub.
She said: “That engineering side, we just had no idea. I mean, you sit in a plane without knowing how the engine works.”
Arnie Weissmann, the editor-in-chief of Travel Weekly, who gave up his seat on the Titan sub, previously revealed that Rush bragged he had bought “expired” materials “at a discount” to build it.
While deep sea explorer Rob McCallum claimed the Titan sub-boss ignored his safety fears after he flagged a series of key design flaws.
Rush previously said he had “broken some rules” to make the Titan sub in the name of “innovation.”
Despite the safety concerns, the family set off for the trip, three months later.
The group flew to Toronto on June 14 but their flight to St John’s was cancelled.
Ironically their flight the following day was delayed and they were worried they would not make it on time to the Titan.
Christine said: “We were actually quite worried, like, oh my god, what if they cancel that flight as well? In hindsight, obviously, I wish they did.”
The family eventually arrived on the mothership at the harbour in St John’s, Newfoundland, where they were briefed about the expedition.
“It was like a well-oiled operation — you could see they had done this before many times,” Christine said.
Passengers were advised to wear thick socks and a hat and follow a “low-residue” diet, with no coffee before the dive.
They were warned there was no toilet onboard but a bottle or a camp-style toilet behind a curtain.
The group was also told to load their favourite music on their phones to play via Bluetooth- with the exception of country music, per Rush’s request.
They were told they would be travelling in pitch black but there was a chance of seeing bioluminescent creatures.
Christine said her husband was so excited about the expedition, “he was like a vibrating toddler.”
She said he was amazed by the stories of Nargeolet, who gave a presentation on his previous dives to the Titanic, including the time he had been “stuck down there for three days and the sub was out of communication.”
She recalled her husband saying: “‘Oh, my god, this is so cool.’
“He was lapping everything up. He had this big glow on his face talking about all this nerdy stuff.”
She also said her son had hoped to break a world record with his Rubik’s Cube while on the expedition to the famous shipwreck.
On June 18, Suleman and Shahzada were all set for their adventure wearing their OceanGate flight suits, waterproof trousers, an orange waterproof jacket, steel-toed boots, life vests, and helmets.
They stopped to be weighed as required and Christine recalls her husband saying: “I’m looking quite fat. I’m boiling up already.”
She remembers watching Shahzada trying to go down the stairs to get into the raft that would take them to the floating platform.
She said: “He needed an extra hand to go down the stairs in all this gear because the boots were very clunky.
“And Alina and I were like, ‘Oh, God, I hope that he doesn’t fall into the water.”
The five passengers climbed into the sub and the hatch was closed with Christine describing it as a “good morning.”
But she later overheard someone saying that communication with Titan had been lost and decided to go to the bridge where a team was monitoring the vessel.
She said she was assured that communication could be unreliable and that the mission would be aborted if there was any problem.
But in the afternoon she was told they did not know where Titan and its crew were.
She said: “I was also looking out on the ocean, in case I could maybe see them surfacing.”
Christine was onboard the mothership when five days later, news that debris was found 1,600ft from the Titanic wreckage.