Christine Dawood planned to voyage to see the Titanic wreckage but let her son go in her place. Her husband, 48-year-old Shahzada Dawood, and their 17-year-old son, Suleman, boarded the Titan submersible on June 18, 2023, with three other people. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, explorer Hamish Harding, and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet died along with the father and son when the submersible imploded. Now, as the disaster’s second anniversary looms, Dawood is speaking out in a new documentary, Implosion: The Titan Sub Disaster.
Although the US Coast Guard will likely release its final report on the investigation later this year, the report means little to Dawood. She said in the documentary that her heartache will never go away.
“They’re never going to come back. Their voices are still in the house, their memories are in the house,” she shared. “No matter what the investigation is, the rooms are still empty.”
Dawood and her teenage daughter, Alina, were on the support vessel together when they lost communication with the Titan. The grieving wife and mother subtly threw shade at parent company OceanGate and Rush.
“This arrogance of the people in charge – when they think they’re above everything, that really gets to me,” Dawood said in the documentary. “Like why is ego and arrogance more important than safety? The irony is not lost on me that the Titanic sunk for exactly the same reason. History repeats itself.”
Dawood said she would never be the same after losing her husband and son but felt solace after talking with the Coast Guard.
“One of the most important things that came out for me was when the Coast Guard also assured us as a family that we couldn’t have known. For me that was – yeah, I guess the most important reassurance they could have given me,” she said.
You can stream Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster on Discovery+ on Prime Video or on HBO Max.
