Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, father-son passengers, enjoy science fiction and travel

Like the other passengers on the missing submarine, Shahzada Dawood loves adventure.

For the British-Pakistani businessman, 48, who boarded the ship with his son, Suleman, 19, the expedition to the wreck of the Titanic followed a long-standing passion for science and discovery, according to friends and family.

“Travel and science are part of his DNA,” said Ahsen Uddin Syed, a friend of Mr. Dawood who used to work with him at the Engro Corporation, a business conglomerate where Mr. Dawood is the Vice Chairman.

Mr. Syed said Mr. Dawood loves Star Trek and Star Wars, and is also fond of nature, often traveling to faraway places and sharing photos of his adventures.

“He’s an explorer,” Mr. Syed said.

Like his father, Suleman Dawood also likes science fiction, according to a statement from Engro. He also plays volleyball and is very interested in solving Rubik’s Cubes.

The elder Dawood’s Instagram profile is covered in high-definition photos of birds, flowers and landscapes ranging from the Greenland ice cap to penguins in the Shetlands to a little birdie in London with the caption “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”.

“Do Adventures Never End?” Mr Dawood wrote in a Facebook post from a trip to Iceland last year, quoting Bilbo Baggins from “The Fellowship of the Ring”. “I don’t think so. Someone else always has to continue the story.”

Khalid Mansoor, another former colleague of Mr. Dawood, said that when the two worked together, Mr. Dawood was a passionate environmental advocate. He is also a trustee at the SETI Institute, an organization dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

“The situation is extremely serious,” the institute said in a statement on Tuesday. “We have every hope for a successful rescue mission and the safe return of our brother and all on board.”

The Dawood family declined to comment because some of them traveled to Canada, the staging area for the search, an Engro spokeswoman said.

Shahzada Dawood and his wife Christine, who live in Britain, also have a daughter, Alina.

“May Shahzada and Suleman return to us safe and sound,” wrote Mr. Dawood, Sabrina Dawood, in a Facebook post.

Salman Massood reporting contributed.