The older sister of the Pakistani businessman, who, together with his son, lost his life in the fatal Titan accident, said her nephew was reluctant to go on the deep-sea expedition to the Titanic’s wreck.
In a Thursday telephone interview with NBC News, Azmeh Dawood, older sister of Shahzada Dawood, one of Pakistan’s wealthiest men, related that her nephew, Suleman Dawood, “wasn’t very up for it” and felt “terrified” of going aboard the Titan.
But the underwater expedition was planned for Father’s Day weekend, and the boy didn’t want to disappoint is father, who has had a deep fascination with the Titanic all his life.
“I am thinking of Suleman, who is 19, in there, just perhaps gasping for breath… It’s been crippling, to be honest,” Azmeh Dawood said.
She was devastated when she read the statement Thursday from OceanGate, the company who organized the Titan expedition, that confirmed that all five passengers onboard were presumed dead.
The statement was released shortly after the U.S. Coast Guard said it had found a debris field, consistent with a “catastrophic implosion,” approximately 1,600 feet from the Titanic.
“I feel disbelief,” Dawood said, “It’s an unreal situation.”
Fortune and Misfortune
The Dawood family is one of Pakistan’s most prominent corporate dynasties. The family’s namesake holding company, Dawood Hercules Corp., has investments in agriculture, telecommunications and, recently, industrial AI.
The family engaged in philanthropy through its Dawood Foundation, which focuses primarily on education; it also provided mental health support for people during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.
The death of Shahzada Dawood and his son isn’t the first misfortune to strike the wealthy family; in 2014, Azmeh Dawood was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis and, in her own words, “reduced to being in a wheelchair.”
To relieve her pain, she and her husband moved from the UK to the Netherlands to have easier access to medicinal cannabis, a treatment that some of her family members disapproved of, including her brother. Eventually, the two siblings fell out of touch.
The tragic news reminded her of the bond she had with her brother: “He was my baby brother,” she said, weeping. “I held him up when he was born.”
Dawood said she always felt close to her nephew, who she described as a thoroughly good-hearted young man.
Dawood revealed that her brother had been “absolutely obsessed” with the Titanic since his childhood in Pakistan. He would constantly watch the 1958 film “A Night to Remember” about the demise of the Titanic.
After four days of non-stop monitoring the news cycle, Dawood now has closure.
“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 said. “I personally have found it kind of difficult to breathe, thinking of them.”
Dawood spent part of Thursday afternoon going through old family photos, trying to make sense of what happened, including the bizarre phenomenon that the entire world became a witness to the double family tragedy.
“I feel very bad that the whole world has had to go through so much trauma, so much suspense,” Dawood said.
In a public statement, Dawood’s parents extended their condolences to the family members of the other passengers of the Titan, thanked everyone for the love and support they have received, and the search teams for their “untiring efforts.”
“Details of their final rites in this world will be announced soon.”
