Titanic submarine update today: Victim’s wife reveals how crew spent final moments on doomed mission

A woman who lost both her husband and son in the Titan submersible implosion has revealed how they spent their final moments on board.

Ms Dawood told the New York Times the crew were told to wear thick socks and a hat due to plunging cold temperatures.

They were also told to make a playlist of their favourite songs to play via Bluetooth during the descent.

The new details about the crew’s last moments come amid recent reports that most of the OceanGate dives to the wreck of the Titanic were reportedly unsuccessful.

The teenager who died on the Titan submersible took a Rubik’s cube with him because he wanted to break a world record, his mother has said.

Christine Dawood told the BBC her son Suleman, 19, was “so excited” to try and solve the puzzle 3,700 metres below the ocean surface.

Meanwhile, his father Shahzada, a businessman, was “so excited he was like a child” at the prospect of seeing the Titanic wreckage.

He had applied to Guinness World Records and his father, who also died, had brought a camera with him to capture the moment.

Ms Dawood said her son loved the famous square puzzle so much that he carried it with him everywhere and dazzled onlookers by solving it in 12 just seconds.

Stockton Rush, 61, chief executive of OceanGate Expeditions, told Sky News earlier this year the Titanic was “an amazingly beautiful wreck”.

His company, which provides crewed submersible services for researchers and explorers to travel deep into the ocean, operated the doomed Titan submersible.

Mr Rush began his career as a pilot at 19 after qualifying from the United Airlines Jet Training Institute. He was the youngest jet transport-rated pilot in the world.

According to Mr Rush’s biography on his company’s website, he graduated from Princeton University with a BSE in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 1984.

He then joined the McDonnell Douglas Corporation as a flight test engineer, and spent two years at Edwards Air Force Base.

He served on the Museum of Flight’s Board of Trustees, the board of enterprise software company Entomo and as chairman of Remote Control Technology.

In 2012, Mr Rush also founded the non-profit OceanGate Foundation while sitting on the board of BlueView Technologies, a manufacturer of high-frequency sonar systems.

Investigators examining the recovered wreckage of the doomed Titan submarine will likely look for cracks which could signify what caused it to implode, a professor in mechanical and marine engineering has suggested.

Dr Jasper Graham-Jones, of the University of Plymouth, told The Sun that an electrical disaster may have occurred after parts of the vessel began to leak.

“This could have been an electrical catastrophe. It could have been corrosion, it could have been a fire. Any leakage of water coming through to the electrics could lead to failure as well,” he told the paper.

He added: “Some of the pipes and parts that lead outside could have begun to leak. If you have a wire going outside, then those wires going through land could actually start to leak. They could have corroded.”

While the passengers may have been aware of a very minor leak, the noise reportedly picked up by US military equipment indicates a more sudden implosion, he said.

“The crack could be brittle, or ductile, and related to fatigue and de-lamination. By scanning under an electron microscope, you can see the fatigue and confirm the speed and direction of the cracks,” he told the paper.

The 1997 blockbusterTitanic will return to Netflix in July – just weeks after a doomed expedition to the ocean liner’s resting place on the oceanfloor.

The movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet is returning to the streaming platform on 1 July, according to HuffPost, along nearly 100 other titles.

The Independent could not independently confirm this report, and has contacted Netflix for comment.

It is unclear whether the decision to add Titanic was made before or after the Titan submersible tragedy this week but some on social media suggested Netflix “could’ve picked a better time” and suggested that the company was seizing on the tragedy to increase viewing figures.

Others said the streaming service could be merely responding to demands from viewers.

The widow of a Pakistani tycoon who lost both her husband and son after their submersible imploded in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean has opened up about her grief.

Speaking at a televised memorial on Tuesday, Christine Dawood, whose husband Shahzada Dawood and 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood were among the victims, said the expedition to the Titanic meant the world for father and son, who she described as true explorers who bonded over their love for adventure.

“These two best friends embarked upon this last voyage, their final journey together,” Ms Dawood told Sky News through tears. “These past few days have been incredibly challenging as a family … Emotions from excitement to shock to hope and finally despair and grief.”

The company that operated the doomed submersible which imploded in the Atlantic promised fee-paying passengers exceptional views of the Titanic’s wreck for $250,000.

But according to an in-depth report by The New York Times published on Sunday, most of the 12,000-ft dives by the Titan did not end with up-close views of the world’s most famous shipwreck.

The Times reported that more missions were aborted than accomplished.

OceanGate began taking customers on dives to the Titanic in 2021, with its late CEO Stockton Rush styling the company as an innovative intersection between research and tourism that looked to push the limits of safety.

But in the aftermath of the tragedy, which killed all five passengers including Mr Rush, several people shared experiences of their Titan dives.

Business owner Bill Price told the Times that on a 2021 dive, the sub lost its propulsion system during the descent. Although Mr Rush immediately aborted the trip, he reportedly couldn’t get a “drop-weight mechanism” to release ballast for the emergency ascent.

Everyone aboard the sub then began shifting sides, using their weight to rock the vessel until the ballast dislodged.

“After several rolls, we got momentum going,” Mr Price told the Times. “Then, we heard a clunk, and we all collectively knew one had dropped off. So we continued to do that, until the weights were all out.”

The next day, the Titan made another dive.

Since the Titan submersible imploded, killing five people aboard, the subject of extreme tourism has been highly debated online and by professionals.

But when the CEO of Pelagic Research Services, the company that helped oversee the recovery mission of the submersible, was asked what his thoughts were on the trips OceanGate took to the Titanic, he claimed he did not have a strong opinion.

“I don’t necessarily have an opinion on that, it’s a strong investigation going on right now,” Edward Cassano said in a press conference on Friday.

The search for the missing Titan submersible fully captured the world’s attention, from reports of mysterious “banging” noises to estimates of how much oxygen may have been left in the underwater vessel.

The search for the submersible captured the attention of millions, as phrases such as “Titan” and hashtags like #OceanGate dominated Twitter’s top trending and TikTok For You Pages. According to Dr Justin D’Arienzo – a clinical psychologist in Jacksonville, Florida and former US Navy psychologist – the reason the public has been so invested is down to our desire to relate to others that sustains our obsession.

“We all can relate to that feeling of being trapped somewhere or being in the water or experiencing that level of uncertainty,” he tells The Independent. “What makes it so relatable is that we all could imagine being helpless with other humans and not know what to do.”