The grieving mother of a teen tourist on the Titan submersible has shared the final moments she shared with her son and husband before they went aboard the doomed submersible.
The family, including daughter Alina, 17, boarded the Polar Prince on Father's Day. Mrs Dawood said they hugged and made jokes in the moments before her husband and son boarded the Titan submersible.
"I was really happy for them because both of them, they really wanted to do that for a very long time," she said.
She described her husband, the son of one of Pakistan's wealthiest billionaires, as infectiously curious about the world around him. She said: "He had this ability of childlike excitement."
Instead of going on the sub, which suffered a "catastrophic implosion" on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic, 3800m beneath the ocean's surface, Christine Dawood sat onboard the vessel's mother ship, Polar Prince. She was forced to endured her son and husband's death at sea.
On its descent into the depths of the Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, the OceanGate submersible lost communication, with the Coast Guard later revealing it had suffered a "catastrophic implosion", killing Suleman Dawood, 19, and his father Shahzada Dawood, 48, along with three others.
Mrs Dawood has now spoken of how she was initially set to join her husband on the trip to the depths of the Atlantic, but their expedition was postponed due to the Covid pandemic. When the trips returned, she gave her place to Suleman, who took his Rubik's Cube with him as he wanted to break a world record.
"I stepped back and gave them space to set [Suleman] up because he really wanted to go," she explained.
Mrs Dawood was on the Polar Prince with her daughter when word came through that communications with the Titan had been lost an hour and 45 minutes into the dive on June 18.
"I didn't comprehend at that moment what it meant - and then it just went downhill from there," she said.
They stayed on the mothership during the four-day search for their loved ones, and the three other men - Hamish Harding, 58, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61.
"I think I lost hope when we passed the 96 hours mark," she told the BBC. It was initially estimated the sub had 96 hours of oxygen left when it lost communication.
Mrs Dawood said that's when she sent a message to her family. "I said: 'I'm preparing for the worst.' That's when I lost hope."
Daughter Alina held out a bit longer. Mrs Dawood added: "She didn't lose hope until the call with the Coast Guard. When they basically informed us that they found debris."
Talking about her son, Mrs Dawood said Suleman loved the Rubik's Cube so much he carried the puzzle, which he could complete in seconds, everywhere with him.
She told the BBC: "He said, 'I'm going to solve the Rubik's Cube 3,7000 metres below the sea at the Titanic'."
Now German-born Mrs Dawood says she and her daughter will try to learn to finish the Rubik's Cube in Suleman's memory, and she intends to continue her husband's work.
She explained: "He was involved in so many things, he helped so many people, and I think I really want to continue that legacy and give him that platform... it's quite important for my daughter as well."
Mrs Dawood declined to discuss the ongoing investigations into the tragedy But when asked how she and her daughter would find closure, she said: "Is there such a thing? I don't know.
"I miss them," she said, taking a deep breath. "I really, really miss them."
The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch has been brought in to help probe the death of the tragedy. Captain Jason Neubauer of the US Coast Guard said the British agency was working "in close coordination" with its North American counterparts.
He said investigators looking into the implosion of the Titan submersible are "taking all precautions" in case they find bodies on the sea floor.
Captain Neubauer, who is chairing the investigation, said: "I'm not getting into the details of the recovery operations, but we are taking all precautions on site if we are to encounter any human remains.
"At this time, a priority of the investigation is to recover items from the sea floor. We have already mapped the accident site in the field, so the other factors would be part of the investigation."
