‘Eerily similar’: Father-son duo who turned down ‘Titan sub’ trip react to images of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood
Passengers who turned down Titan trip feel haunted after seeing photos of the Dawoods who died in the incident.
Among the five passengers who died in the Titan submersible tragedy, were a father-son duo named Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. Interestingly, there was another father-son duo, Jay Bloom and his 20-year-old son Sean who had turned down the adventure trip to explore the Titanic wreck, citing safety concerns.
In an interview with the New York Post, Bloom has highlighted that he is feeling haunted after seeing photos of the Dawoods who perished in the Titan incident.
“This is all over the news, and I’m seeing three pictures of individuals and the fourth picture of a father and son,” said Bloom.
“When I look at that picture of the father and son, it’s eerily similar to the pictures I have with my son. Very haunting,” he added.
Bloom informed that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush whose company owned Titan, had offered him a “last-minute price” of $150,000 per person which was a discount of $100,000 over the full price $250,000-a-seat price. But Bloom backed out of the trip after his son Sean's friend researched about what might go wrong in the deep sea voyage and the duo became scared of the possible hazards in the trip.
On seeing the pictures of late Dawoods who perished on Titan, Bloom said: “It’s really weird. One decision, that would have been our picture.”
Bloom also highlighted how he was initially very excited of going on Titan and giving his Sean an experience of a lifetime.
“Initially, there was a lot of excitement about the opportunity,” Bloom said, noting that his son has been “a huge fan of the Titanic and its story ever since he was a little kid.”
“I thought it was an amazing opportunity to give him a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said.
Bloom further explained that he realised that OceanGate CEO was "reckless" in his approach and undermined the safety of those on board Titan.
“You can take risks, but they should be calculated risks. Stockton — the more I learned — was just reckless,” said Bloom.
“Any facts that came in — no matter how outlandish — if they supported his [Rush’s] position, he accepted them as true. Other facts that came in — no mater how credible — if they refuted his position, he rejected them as someone else’s position and they’re wrong,”he added.
In the Titan submersible incident, all five persons who went on the adventure deep sea trip, died. Besides the father-son duo of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, British billionaire businessman Hamish Harding, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and former French navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet were the five persons who perished in the disaster. Debris of the Titan submersible has been recovered. As per experts, there is negligible chance of recovering the dead bodies.
