Among the five passengers on the Titan submarine was a Pakistani-British businessman who was fascinated by Titanic. According to his aunt, his 19-year-old son accompanied him to please him.

The father-son journey has turned into a tragedy. Suleman Dawood, 19, was the youngest passenger on the Titan submarine, which disappeared off the coast of Canada on Sunday after exploring the wreck of the Titanic. Aboard his father, Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani-British billionaire, he was “terrified” at the prospect of this expedition, which he had agreed to undertake because of Father’s Day, the day the boat departed, Thursday entrusted to his aunt NBC News.

“Not very excited” about getting started

Azmeh Dawood, the late billionaire’s sister, remembers her 48-year-old brother as a man who was fascinated by the sinking of the Titanic for many years.

Her 19-year-old nephew, on the other hand, said she was “not very enthusiastic” about the idea of ​​being part of this expedition, even seeming “terrified” by the prospect. He had even confided his doubts to another family member.

However, the teenager had agreed to board the Titan to please his father, despite Father’s Day falling last Sunday, the day of embarkation.

“It paralyzes me”

Concerned, the sister and aunt of the missing person, who lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, expressed their grief to American media on Thursday while the wreckage of the submarine has not yet been found.

“I think of Suleman, who is 19 years old there, and maybe the lack of air is taking his breath away,” she fears, while the American Coast Guard had not again conjured up a possible implosion of the submersible on Thursday evening.

“Honestly, it paralyzes me,” she says.

Like a “bad movie”

After the announcement of the very probable deaths of the father and his son, she felt “incredulous” and had “difficulty breathing just thinking about them”. “It’s an unreal situation,” she said.

“I feel like I’ve lived through a bad countdown movie without knowing what to expect,” she says through a sob in her voice.

“I feel bad that the whole world has had to endure such trauma and tension,” she says.

Shahzada Dawood, 48, and her son Suleman, 19, were part of a family that went on to found one of Pakistan’s most prosperous industrial empires. On board were three other passengers, 77-year-old French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 58-year-old British businessman Hamish Harding and the American head of OceanGate Expeditions, organizer of the voyage, Stockton Rush, 61.