According to his aunt, youngest traveller Suleman Dawood voiced some apprehension about the voyage to the ocean below in the days preceding up to the trip.
However, because Father’s Day weekend coincided with the trip, he decided to accompany his father, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood.
According to Azmeh Dawood, Shahzada’s elder sister, her nephew “wasn’t very up for it” and was “terrified” by the Titanic excursion.
The young man, then 19, chose to join the trip so that he might gratify his father, who had been “absolutely obsessed” with the Titanic ever since he was a child.
Azhmeh was not shocked to learn that her younger brother had booked tickets for OceanGate’s current expedition, since she remembered the siblings viewing video after film about the disaster and visiting museums about the ship.
Photographed by Ocean Gate / Handout / Anadolu Agency and made available on Getty Images.
I imagine 19-year-old Suleman huffing and puffing in there. In her own words, “it’s been devastating.
Azmeh expressed her “disbelief” after learning of the “catastrophic implosion” the Titan had likely experienced from the U.S. Coast Guard.
I can’t believe this is happening.Azmeh spent countless hours in front of the screen in the days leading up to the discovery of the debris field.That’s when I realised that I was in a poor movie.
“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 remarked. “When I think of them, it’s hard for me to take a deep breath.”
The Dawoods have issued a plea for the community to “keep the departed souls and our family in your prayers.” They are very appreciative of the “unceasing efforts” of the search teams.
The Dawood family, and the families of all those lost in the tragic underwater explosion, are in our prayers.