An almost one and a half meter tall Lego model of the Titanic, made from more than 9,000 bricks, sits in the living room of a house in Surrey. A 19 year old boy took about two weeks to make it. His mother cannot bring herself to part with it. The boy was Suleman Dawood and he died along with his father Shahzada on 18 June 2023 when the Titanic submarine exploded 500 meters above the wreck of the Titanic during a dive to the seabed. Christine Daoud, the wife and mother of two people killed that day, is speaking publicly for the first time about what happened.In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian, Christine told how she gave up her seat on the Titan so her son could dive with his father. Suleman had a fascination with Titanic since childhood. This trip seemed like a chance to give him an experience he would never forget. He had no reason to believe that it would cost him his life.The Dawood family found the opportunity during the 2020 lockdown through their private travel agency Quintessentially. The cost was US$500,000 for two seats. The Princes were one of the wealthiest families in Pakistan and the family could afford it. Christine said she researched the safety records of civilian submarines and found no accidents. This was enough assurance for him at that time.She didn’t know the full picture behind Oceangate and its founder Stockton Rush. Rush never submitted Titan for independent safety inspection or classification by any maritime authority. He dismissed the process as too slow and said it stifled innovation. The submersible was not registered to carry passengers. There were hundreds of technical problems during its last season of operation and an unexplained explosive noise occurred during a climb in July 2022, which Rush never investigated. The Titan spent six months sitting uncovered in a car park in St. John’s, exposed to Newfoundland winters, ahead of the 2023 campaign.None of this was shared with the Dawood family before boarding the plane. Christine saw her husband and son board the boat and speed toward Titan on the morning of June 18. he waved. That was the last time he saw them. The submersible began to descend and about three hours later its carbon fiber hull catastrophically failed due to deep sea pressure. It exploded in a fraction of a second. All five people on board died instantly.Christine spent four days on the Polar Prince’s auxiliary ship, without knowing whether her husband and son were alive or dead. He described his experience to the Guardian as being like watching an avalanche coming and having nowhere to go. He made a conscious choice to suppress his worst emotions. He told himself that they were stuck instead of leaving. The Oceangate crew maintained an atmosphere of denial throughout, continuing to suggest technical problems that Rush and other experienced divers onboard could solve.When a remotely operated vehicle finally reached the ocean floor on June 22 and transmitted footage showing the twisted wreckage of Titan’s tail cone, Christine’s first reaction was relief. He said that knowing that the prince and Suleiman died instantly and without suffering is one of the things that has made the grief bearable. One moment he was there and the next moment he was not.The official U.S. Coast Guard investigation later concluded that the disaster was entirely preventable and caused by inadequate engineering, inadequate testing, and Rush’s reckless disregard for established safety standards. Had Rush survived, he would have faced criminal proceedings.Christine told the Guardian that she had decided not to direct her energy toward anger at Rush. She said that giving him power over his emotional state would not benefit him. She said she would not have been able to survive without that option. She now plans to set up a grief and trauma center and recently walked from Hampton Court to her son’s university in Glasgow in tribute to Suleiman, taking five weeks to complete the journey, who had always wanted to walk himself.Nine months after the explosion, the remains of Shahzada and Suleiman were recovered from the seabed and placed in two small boxes. Christine keeps Suleiman’s room exactly as she left it. Her husband’s study remains untouched.