A victim of the Titan submersible tragedy has left only a small slice of his millions to his wife due to an unfair rule.
The Titan sub imploded while on a visit to the Titanic wreckage in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 2023, instantly killing all five people on board.
The OceanGate vessel was attempting to reach the ocean floor some 12,500 feet below sea level to see the most infamous shipwreck in the world when communications dropped just one hour and 45 minutes into its descent.
After the sub failed to resurface, the US Coast Guard launched a ‘frantic marine search’ but the debris of the wreckage was sadly discovered four days later and about 500 meters from the Titanic’s bow.
The Titan sub imploded less than two hours into its descent (Becky Kagan Schott/OceanGate)
Among the five dead was British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, 77-year-old former French navy diver, Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and 61-year-old American businessman Stockton Rush, whose company OceanGate ran the expedition.
Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani-British businessman, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood also died in the tragedy, and now, it has been revealed the 48-year-old’s wife has been snubbed from receiving his fortune with less than £100,000 due to a document issue.
Mr Dawood was heir to one of the richest families in Pakistan with a £1.3 billion-a-year business empire and billions of pounds in assets.
The billionaire businessman was the vice chairman of a fertiliser, food and energy company, called Engro Corporation, as well as Dawood Hercules Corporation, which makes chemicals, and was a trustee at the SETI Institute, a non-profit research organisation.
Shahzada and Suleman Dawood died along with three others in the Titan disaster. (Dawood Family Handout)
His son had high hopes of working with his father in the Karachi-based family business and was studying business analysis and human resources at Strathclyde University in Glasgow.
Yet Mr Dawood’s wife and the mother of his children who lived in the UK with him, Christine Dawood, has only been granted his £76,958 estate ($93,900).
According to newly released probate documents, this is because Mr Dawood died without a valid will, the Daily Star reports.
Mrs Dawood resides in the Surrey mansion the couple shared with their two children, Suleman and their daughter, Alina, who was 17 at the time of the accident.
Christine Dawood has been left less than £100,000 of the billionaire’s estate (BBC)
The will noted Pakistan was Mr Dawood’s permanent home so the majority of his fortune has remained outside of the UK.
Speaking on the first anniversary of their death, Mrs Dawood wrote in a post on Facebook: “When people pass, they take a piece of you with them.
“As the one-year anniversary is coming closer, I’m reflecting back on a time that nearly broke me, and yet the love and support I’ve received was, and still is, so huge that I can’t feel anything but being grateful.
“I miss them every day, every hour, every minute, they will never be replaced.”
The widow had previously said the possibility of Titan imploding ‘never crossed our minds’, adding: “To lose a husband is terrible, but when you lose a child.”
It sparked an international manhunt to to track down the missing sub which had plunged 12,400ft – more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon – under the North Atlantic Ocean.
The US Coast Guard announced the sub had between 70 and 96 hours before it ran out of oxygen, while a rhythmic banging noise gave some people hope that they might simply be trapped underwater.
Sadly all five on board were pronounced dead after the implosion. They were British-Pakistani businessman 48-year-old Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman; British businessman Hamish Harding, aged 58; 77-year-old former French navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet; and 61-year-old American businessman Stockton Rush, whose company OceanGate ran the expedition.
The Titan submersible which five passengers were onboard when it imploded (PA)
Four days after the search was launched debris of the sub was discovered.
Now, a public hearing into exactly what happened is taking place.
On September 16, the US Coast Guard commenced the hearing to investigate the fatal implosion of the sub and deduce if there is anyone to blame for the tragic incident.
As part of it, the Marine Board presented an animation model which appears to track the sub’s final moments.
The 10-minute long simulation reveals the dialogue between the sub and the support ship before it lost contact.
On Tuesday (September 17), former employee of OceanGate David Lochridge testified, revealing how he warned of potential safety problems with the vessel as far back as 2018, which he says were ignored.
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The submersible took a fatal dive on June 18 despite experiencing a malfunction days before (United States Coast Guard)
Lochridge, who was fired from the company in 2018, told investigators that it was ‘inevitable’ something would eventually go wrong.
When asked if he had any confidence in the way Titan was being built, he stated: “No confidence whatsoever, and I was very vocal about that, and still am.”
“A lot of steps along the way were missed,” Lochridge added. “I knew that hull would fail. It’s an absolute mess.”
He also criticized the ‘arrogance’ within the company, along with the ‘control freak’ tendencies of Stockton Rush.
Titan sub inquiry – everything we know from the investigation so far
A public hearing into the five deaths of the people onboard OceanGate’s ill-fated Titan submersible began on Monday (16 September).
It is expected to last two weeks.
Titan was ‘unregistered, non-certificated and unclassed’
The first day of the hearing heard how the submersible was built in 2020 and was ‘unregistered, non-certificated and unclassed’, as well as having no identification number.
The submersible’s hull was never subject to third-party checks and officials said it was left exposed to the elements while in storage for seven months in 2022 and 2023.
Parts of Titan ‘bonded together using an adhesive’
In 2017, the year OceanGate announced it would be conducting trips to the Titanic, employees bonded together the submersible’s carbon fibre hull and titanium rings ‘using an adhesive’.
Titan found ‘partially sunk’ month before tragedy
During its 2023 expedition, the Titan was found ‘partially sunk’ in the ocean.
Image released of Titan debris on sea floor
An image showing debris, including the Titan’s tail cone, on the sea floor after the implosion was revealed.
One of the last texts from submersible revealed
One of Titan’s final responses was revealed to be: “All good here.”
Titan ‘struck by lightning’
Tony Nissen, OceanGate Expeditions’ former engineering director, testified that the Titan was hit by lightning during a test mission in 2018.
Nissen, who was allegedly fired in 2019 after not letting the submersible go to the Titanic, told OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush it was ‘not working like we thought it would’.
When asked to pilot the submersible, Nissen said: “I’m not getting in it.”
Titan engineer ‘felt pressure to get submersible ready for wreck dive’
When asked if there was pressure to get the Titan into the water, Nissen replied: “100%.”
Waivers
While Bonnie Carl, OceanGate’s former human resources and finance director, said she was aware of a waiver people had to sign, she testified she ‘never saw anyone sign anything’.
“When I was taking money, we hadn’t even finished building the Titan,” Carl claimed.
‘No red flags’ on day Titan went missing
Former OceanGate contractor Tym Catterson said: “There were no red flags… it was a good day.”
Footage of Titan wreckage released by US Coast Guard
New, unseen footage of the Titan sub has been released to the public by the US Coast Guard, with the camera panning around to see the tail cone of the sub on the ocean floor.
Featured Image Credit: Titan Submersible Marine Board of Investigation/US Coast Guard
Topics: Court, Titanic, US News, Titan submersible
For those unaware, last year, five people lost their lives after it was confirmed that a submersible they were travelling in had imploded.
The OceanGate submersible descended deep into the Atlantic Ocean as part of a voyage to view the Titanic wreckage, which rests 12,500 feet below sea level.
Approximately one hour and 45 minutes into the trip on June 18 2023, the mother ship on the surface lost contact with the Titan, meaning its location was completely unknown.
This launched a race against the clock as a search mission got underway, aware that the crew would eventually run out of oxygen.
However, when pieces of the submersible were discovered in the ocean, it was revealed Titan had suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’.
The five people on board were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, UK billionaire Hamish Harding, businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his son Sulaiman Dawood.
Nargeolet’s daughter Sidonie, 40, has spoken from her home Ordino, Andorra about the incident and said she hopes the voyages to the Titanic continue.
However she did take issue with no one from OceanGate allegedly contacting her after her father’s death.
She told the Daily Mail: “My anger is mostly because no one from OceanGate contacted us to say we are sorry for your loss, which I’m angry about.
“At least I think they could have contacted us to say we are sorry for your loss.”
However, an OceanGate representative told the Mail they did contact the Nargeolet family after the tragedy.
Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Speaking on future voyages, she said ‘I think they have to do it’ and insisted that a bad sub does not mean all trips will end the same way.
“We don’t have to make a confusion with a bad sub and a good one, you know?” she said.
“I think it’s good that people go on the sub and it’s good to take artefacts from the Titanic, but just not to play with security, the lives of people.”
She also noted that she was very used to her father making these extreme trips and never considered the quality of the submersibles he was regularly in.
“I have always been used to it, so I think it was like normal for me,” she said.
Sidonie said voyages should continue (OceanGate/Becky Kagan Schott)
“So I never wondered if the submersible was a good one or not.
“He told me that the Titan was a new kind of sub, but he didn’t tell me he was worried about it.
“I didn’t know anything about this sub, I didn’t know how it was made.
“Now from what I heard, it seems that so many people said it was a bad sub, so why has it been able to go into the sea?”
UNILAD has contacted OceanGate for a comment.
Featured Image Credit: Becky Kagan Schott / OceanGate / Xavier DESMIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Topics: News, Titanic, Travel, World News, Titan submersible
Since its discovery in 1985, 73 years after it sank, the rusty, decaying shipwreck has been explored several times by scientists, explorers and tourists – including OceanGate, the company that owned the ill-fated submersible that imploded on its way to the wreckage.
On June 18, 2023, its expedition to view the sunken ship went horribly wrong when the Titan lost contact with its support vessel roughly an hour and 45 minutes into a two-and-a-half-hour descent.
It sparked an international manhunt to to track down the missing sub which had plunged 12,400ft – more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon – under the North Atlantic Ocean.
The US Coast Guard announced the sub had between 70 and 96 hours before it ran out of oxygen, while a rhythmic banging noise gave some people hope that they might simply be trapped underwater.
Footage of the US Coast Guard recovering the remains of the Titan submersible just eight days after it first went missing (USCG)
Sadly all five on board were pronounced dead after the implosion.
They were British-Pakistani businessman 48-year-old Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman; British businessman Hamish Harding, aged 58; 77-year-old former French navy diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and 61-year-old American businessman Stockton Rush, co-founder of OceanGate.
The hearing was commenced by the US Coast Guard on September 16, and footage has been released of the submersible remains being collected.
It shows a remotely operated vehicle recovering parts of the sub back on June 26, last year, which then took it to a secure lab so that it could be analysed.
The Titan submersible which imploded on its way to view the shipwreck (PA)
Despite five people having died during the expedition, including his fellow co-founder, Guillermo Sohnlein has urged the public that he hopes the tragic incident doesn’t end deep sea exploring.
Speaking on the stand yesterday at the hearing, at Charleston County Council Building, in South Carolina, he said: “This can’t be the end of deep ocean exploration.
“This can’t be the end of deep-diving submersibles and I don’t believe that it will be.”
Sohnlein founded the company with Rush in 2009 before departing in 2013.
The hearing is expected to last for two weeks from September 16.
Featured Image Credit: X/@maritimecommons
Topics: Titanic, US News, Titan submersible
The last words heard from the crew of an experimental submersible heading for the wreck of the Titanic have been revealed.
The US coast guard presented the animation on Monday (September 16) on the first day of what is expected to be a two-week hearing on the causes of the implosion and if any criminal activity led to the tragedy.
British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood died, alongside OceanGate Expeditions’ chief executive Stockton Rush and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
His 19-year-old son was a student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.
The crew aboard the Titan were communicating with support staff aboard the Polar Prince by text messages, according to the presentation.
The last words from the vessel’s crew were ‘all good’.
The crew lost contact after an exchange of repeated inquiries from the Polar Prince about the submersible’s depth and weight as it descended.
The Titan submersible (PA)
An image of the submarine was also shown, with the Titan ship’s tail seen stuck vertically on the seabed.
The images were taken by a remotely operated vehicle on June 22, 2023.
The Titan imploded just days before the images were taken, setting off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.
The aim of the hearing in Charleston County, South Carolina, is to ‘uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future’, the coast guard said in a statement earlier this month.
The ongoing Marine Board of Investigation is the highest level of marine casualty investigation conducted by the coast guard. When the hearing concludes, recommendations will be submitted to the coast guard’s commandant.
The first image of the Titan after its implosion (Pelagic Research Services)
“There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this tragic incident,” said Jason Neubauer of the Coast Guard Office of Investigations.
“But we hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy and prevent anything like this from happening again.”
According to MailOnline, ten former OceanGate employees will give testimony in the hearing.
While questions remain about the safety of such deep sea explorations, earlier this year billionaire Larry Connor asked for another similar sub to the Titan to be built so he can visit the wreckage of the Titanic himself.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in May, Connor said: “I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way.”
His plans may change when the current hearing concludes in two-weeks time, however.
Featured Image Credit: OceanGate/Becky Kagan Schott
