Passengers on the Titan submarine probably spent the last moments in the dark watching bioluminescent creatures

The five passengers aboard the doomed Titan submarine spent their last moments listening to music in total darkness, watching bioluminescent creatures in the depths, a victim’s wife has revealed.

They began their dive to the wreckage of the Titanic on June 18 at 8:00 am. One hour and 45 minutes after the dive, at 09:45, contact was lost.

It is now known that the US Navy recorded the sound of an implosion at that time. Five days later, debris from the submarine was found on the seabed 500 meters from the Titanic.

Those on board – the CEO of the company behind the expedition, Stockton Rush, 61; French Titanic expert PH Nargeolet, 77; 58-year-old British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding; and father and son Shahzada Dawood, 48, and Suleman Dawood, 19 – were likely killed instantly, with no idea what was going on.

On Sunday, Christine Dawood, wife of Shahzada and mother of Suleman, told the New York Times about the last run-up to the descent.

She traveled aboard the mother ship Polar Prince with their daughter Alina, 17.

Dawood said they arrived on the mother ship in the middle of the night of June 15 in the harbor of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and headed for the dive site.

She said there were briefings at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. with science talks and discussions about the wreck and the expedition.

Those preparing to make the descent were told to wear thick socks and a hat as it could get cold at the depth, and to adhere to a “low-residue diet” the day before the dive , without coffee one morning.

There was no toilet on board, only a bottle or camping toilet behind a curtain.

The passengers were told to load their favorite music onto their phones and play it through a Bluetooth speaker – even though Rush banned country music.

He also warned them that the descent would be in pitch darkness because the headlights had been turned off to save battery power for when they reached the sea floor.

However, they were told that they would likely see bioluminescent creatures.

Christine Dawood said her husband was so excited he was “like a shaking toddler” leading up to the trip.

She said they became fascinated with the Titanic after visiting an exhibition in Singapore in 2012, the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.

In 2019, the family visited Greenland and were intrigued by the glaciers that encased themselves in icebergs.

She found an ad for OceanGate and originally planned to take the trip with her husband.

However, their trip was delayed due to the pandemic, and by the time they could make it, Suleman was old enough to go instead of them.

The teen took a Rubik’s Cube with him, hoping to complete the underwater world record.

She said Rush and his wife Wendy traveled to London – where they lived – to update them on the trip, but the technical aspect remained unclear.

“That technical side, we just had no idea,” she told The New York Times.

“I mean, you’re on an airplane without knowing how the engine works.”

But she said they got swept up in the idea of ​​the adventure.

Christine Dawood said her husband recorded the onboard stories of Nargeolet, one of the world’s leading Titanic experts, who was one of the dead.

She said the Frenchman gave a presentation about his 37 previous dives to the Titanic and told the group a story about how he was “stuck there for three days and the submarine lost communication.”

She said her husband turned to her and said, “Oh my God, this is so cool.”

She added: “He licked everything up. He had a big glow on his face talking about all that nerdy stuff.”

On the morning of June 18, passengers were required to be on deck by 5 a.m.

Christine Dawood said she was impressed with the professionalism of those on deck.

“It was like a well-oiled operation — you could tell they’d done this many times before,” she said.

Suleman and Shahzada brought their OceanGate flight suits, as well as waterproof pants, an orange waterproof jacket, steel-toed boots, life jackets and helmets.

They stopped to be weighed as required and posed for a photo.

“I look rather fat,” Shahzada said. “I’m already cooking.”

Suleman descended the stairs to board the motorized raft that would take the passengers to the floating platform on which Titan was tied.

Shahzada found it less easy to get to the platform.

“He needed an extra hand to go down the stairs in all this gear because the boots were very clumsy,” she said.

“And Alina and I were like, ‘Oh, God, I hope he doesn’t fall in the water.’

All five climbed into the submarine and divers closed the hatch. Someone with a ratchet tightened all the bolts.

Crews maneuvered the Titan underwater and released it from the platform.

“It was a good morning,” she said.

Later that morning, Christine Dawood heard someone say that communications with Titan had been lost.

She went to the bridge, where a team had been monitoring the descent, and was told not to worry as communications could be unreliable.

She was told that if there was a problem, the mission would be aborted and the submarine would drop the weights on board and rise to the surface.

Someone then told her that they didn’t know where the Titan was.

“I also looked out over the ocean, in case I might see them pop up,” she said.

She was aboard the mothership when news arrived five days later that the submarine’s debris had been found.