The wife of one of the Titan sub disaster victims has said seeing the Titanic was the ‘lifelong dream’ of her husband, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and that he was ‘like a child’ before setting off on the doomed expedition with their son.

Christine Dawood also paid tribute to her son, 19-year-old Suleman, a student at Strathclyde University who took his Rubik’s Cube on the trip as he hoped to break the world record for solving the puzzle at the greatest depth.

Christine and her daughter were onboard Titan’s mothership, the Polar Prince, when news came through that they had lost communication with the submersible shortly after it began its descent at 8am on Sunday, June 18.

A major search and rescue mission was launched and went on for days, and while her daughter clung onto hope throughout, Christine said she ‘lost hope when we passed the 96 hours mark’.

‘That’s when I lost hope. That’s when I sent the message to my family onshore, I said: “I am preparing for the worst”.’

Ending her interview with the BBC, the heartbroken mother said through tears: ‘I miss them. I really, really miss them.’ 

UK-based billionaire Shahzada and his son Suleman were two of the five victims killed instantly when the submersible suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ just 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic, according to the US Coast Guard.

Christine revealed that she had planned to go with her husband to view the Titanic wreck in the OceanGate submersible, but that their trip was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.

‘Then I stepped back and gave them space to set [Suleman] up, because he really wanted to go,’ she said.

Christine and her daughter Alina, 17, waited for news at the site where Titan was last seen during the four-day long search and rescue mission.

‘We had loads of hope, that was the only thing that got us through it because we were hoping,’ she said.

As well as her husband and son, three others died on board Titan: Stockton Rush, the 61-year-old CEO of OceanGate, British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77, a former French navy diver and experienced Titanic diver. 

‘There were so many actions the people on this sub can do in order to surface – it was like this rollercoaster, well more like a wave,’ Christine said.

‘They would drop the weights, then the assent would be slower, we were constantly looking at the surface. There was that hope.’

Despite the bleak outlook, she said her teenage daughter never lost hope of her father and older brother’s rescue. 

‘My daughter didn’t lose hope until the call with the Coastguard when they basically informed us that they had found debris.’

Alina’s mother said: ‘she is such an incredible young woman, she is so self-aware.

‘She believes in science, and she really believe, just like if you board a plane, that the science, the mechanics, the engineering will work.’

Christine said at 96 hours she tried ‘really hard’ not to show her daughter that she had lost hope. 

Christine said her son had been a ‘mother’s boy’ but also that he ‘loved his father’.

When asked what the family’s last words to each other were, she told the BBC: ‘We just hugged and joked actually, because Shahzada was so excited to go down, he was like a little child. He had this ability of childhood excitement, they were both so excited.’ 

Christine and Shahzada met at university, she said, when she didn’t speak any English. 

She recalled how the history buff knew more about her native Germany’s history than she did, and that he was obsessed with documentaries. 

‘He would make us all watch David Attenborough, and the children loved it.

‘His enthusiasm brought the best out of me, and so I really learned to love history as well. He was really able to, through his knowledge, inspire and motivate others.’

Her son, she said, was practical and intellectual, and wouldn’t go anywhere without his Rubik’s Cube – which he taught himself to solve it in just 12 seconds.

‘Suleman did a 10,000-piece lego Titanic. He applied for a world record because he wanted to solve a Rubik’s Cube at the deepest point.

While his application was rejected, they were still planning to film the attempt, with Suleman saying ‘I’m going to solve the Rubik’s Cube 3,700 meters below sea at the Titanic.’

Christine said she and Alina have now promised themselves they will learn the Rubik’s Cube for Suleman, and watch ‘every single movie he liked’ in his memory.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk