‘Humans are always fascinated by tragedy:’ How the Titan sub implosion unfolded

Scrolling through Instagram during the Covid lockdown, Christine Dawood saw something that made her do a double take.

“I just thought, ‘That’s fake,’” she remembers.

She passed her phone to her husband — not out of genuine interest, she says, but in a spirit of astonishment. He was captivated.

“He said, ‘Find out if it’s real,’ and I was like, ‘This is definitely fake.’ But he said, ‘No, find out,’ so I asked our travel agent. And then they came back to us and said, ‘Yeah, it’s possible.’ And I’m like, ‘Really?’”

That fateful day scrolling was a turning point of monumental proportions for Dawood. The Instagram reel that she had assumed was computer-generated was in fact genuine footage of the Titan, a submersible that had been constructed to dive to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, taking tourists to the wreck of the Titanic.

And her husband, Shahzada, wanted to go.

Everyone knows how the story ends. On June 18, 2023, the Titan imploded off the Titanic’s bow, instantly killing all five on board. Shahzada Dawood was one of them. Their 19-year-old son, Suleman, was at his side.

They died alongside fellow tourist Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a deep-ocean diver who’d been dozens of times to the Titanic, and Stockton Rush, whose company, OceanGate, had built the Titan — and, it would later emerge, knew about its deficiencies according to the US Coast Guard.

Now, after damning reports from the US Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board and its Canadian counterpart about the vessel’s flaws, as well as OceanGate’s “ toxic workplace culture ” and “ intimidation tactics … to evade regulatory scrutiny,” Christine Dawood is ready to talk.

Her book, “Ninety-Six Hours: A Wife and Mother’s Desperate Search for the Lost Titan Sub,” was published in May — the result, she says, of “word-vomiting” her pain onto the page.

In the three years since the tragedy, Dawood has, she says, dealt with post-traumatic health problems, borne witness to the investigations into OceanGate, and suffered an enraging bureaucratic battle to have the remains of her husband and son returned. A life coach with a psychology degree, she is now channeling her grief into helping others, and plans to open a center for psychosomatic illness and trauma next year in the UK.

“I’ve been quiet on purpose, I didn’t want to talk to anybody,” she says. “So why now? I wanted to bring their voices, show the people behind the headlines. They were lovely human beings with their own strengths and weaknesses, their quirks.

“I’m slowly starting a new phase with the healing center, and I will never be able to close that chapter, but I think the book rounds it up, and now I can concentrate on the next thing and leave the public behind.”

Dawood’s understated memoir starts from the day she met Shahzada, when they were both students in her native Germany, and ends after the prayer ceremony the family held for the dead men in St. John’s, Newfoundland. She recounts in excruciating detail the family’s journey on the Polar Prince — the icebreaker that served as mission control for the Titan’s ill-fated final expedition in the North Atlantic — and the 96 hours she spent after the sub was reported missing, hoping for a positive outcome.

She also writes with torturous hindsight about their decision to take the trip. Initially, she was meant to descend to the wreck with Shahzada. She gave her spot to Suleman to gift them a father-son experience to remember.

“I wasn’t instantly excited,” she says about that day she saw the Instagram post, speaking in the family home outside London where she still lives with her daughter.

Dawood suffers from claustrophobia — even long-haul flights are a trial for her. Her husband did too, she says. But Shahzada was thrilled by the idea of visiting the wreck — and was prepared to battle his claustrophobia to do so — so she volunteered to go with him. “Nature exploration was my thing, like going to a forest or on hikes,” she says. “That was out of his comfort zone but he would have come with me. So I would have gone with him.”

Suleman was intrigued, too, but was too young to make the dive when they first saw the ad.

In the wake of the catastrophe, much was made of Suleman’s fascination with the Titanic. The 19-year-old had even made a Lego model of the ship — it still sits in the family’s kitchen today.

But Dawood says that the Titanic was one of countless interests for Suleman sparked by their family travels.

While Harding, the other tourist on the Titan, was a keen adventurer, the Dawoods preferred plusher vacations that taught them something. “We loved a clean toilet and a cushy bed — we were very comfort-oriented,” she says. Shahzada was a history buff, so the family had been to Lebanon to see the ancient Cedars of God forest that the Phoenicians had used to build their ships, becoming the Med’s most famous seafarers. They’d been to England’s Jurassic Coast to hunt for fossils on the beach. They’d seen shipwrecks that had been brought up from the depths in museums. And in 2011, while living in Singapore, they had visited an exhibition about the Titanic, which included objects raised from the wreckage by Nargeolet.

“It was something that interested us, like the cedars, or the Parthenon or the Colosseum, or how the Eiffel Tower was built,” she says.

The exhibition assigned visitors the name of a real-life Titanic passenger on entry, and revealed at the exit whether that person had survived the tragedy. “It was really well done,” she says. “They had original pieces there: clothes, part of the hull. It was fascinating that it was possible to get all these pieces up, because it’s so deep down.”

“In hindsight it looks like that [that Suleman was fascinated] but he also tried to make a painting of Andy Warhol because we went to that exhibition too,” she adds. “He was interested, and he was young. We were like, ‘This is really interesting, and the history and the story is interesting,’ but we weren’t obsessed with it. It was a nice family day. We went for dim sum afterwards.”

The drawn-out pandemic meant that Suleman got the chance to take that interest further. By the time travel was allowed, he was old enough to embark on the Titan. The Dawoods’ original plan had been to try a dive of the Hudson Canyon, also offered by OceanGate . “I think they would have been just as happy going down the Hudson,” she says, adding that her family was more interested in the tech that would allow them to dive so deep, rather than the famous wreck in particular. But, emerging from lockdown, they had the same hankering for a bucket-list trip as everyone else . “We decided, OK, let’s go for the big one straightaway.”

For the past decade, the family had booked vacations through Quintessentially, a high-end concierge service, says Dawood. When she’d sent them the Instagram video of the Titan, they’d replied offering to arrange it. “They didn’t flag anything — they immediately connected me to them,” she says. “They were very excited — they were on the call with me.”

Quintessentially set up an initial call with OceanGate, according to emails seen by CNN. Once the Dawoods paid their deposit, Rush and his wife Wendy, then OceanGate’s communications director, flew over to London to meet them. “I actually saw it as something positive — they’re making an effort, reassuring us,” she says now. Although she dismissed much of Rush’s spiel as “hot air,” she believed the basics. “He was talking about research, which we later found out was complete bullshit,” she says. “He said they are together with NASA, they are doing research with some university, so we thought, OK. None of that was true.” (NASA had consulted with the company over plans for a composite hull, though refused OceanGate permission to use its name in a press release , lest it seem like an endorsement.)

Although she trusted her travel concierge to do due diligence on the safety, Dawood did her own research, too. In her book, she describes searching for statistics about submersible accidents and finding nothing. “And I knew Nargeolet would be with us. Somebody who’s been down there 30 times… they called him ‘Mr Titanic.’ Why would I not trust such a person?”

In 2025, the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) report found that OceanGate had failed to analyze hull anomalies following a 2022 dive. It cited the sub’s “inadequate design, certification, maintenance and inspection process” as the primary contributing factors of the disaster, as well as OceanGate’s “toxic workplace culture” and inadequate regulatory framework and whistleblower procedures. The five deaths were “preventable,” it found.

In her book, Dawood writes about an investigator telling her not to go down the agonizing road of hindsight.

“The head of the investigation said to me, ‘You could not have known,’” she says now. Today, she says, she’d like to see the travel industry more tightly regulated. “If you go to a travel agent, you are placing trust in their expertise,” she says. “That’s their job, right?” She felt that booking through an agent gave more security, she says. Emails reviewed by CNN show Dawood referring to her fear of the planned trip several times when writing to Quintessentially, and the company revisiting the idea of booking the Titanic trip more than once when she had let it go dormant.

Quintessentially said in a statement:

“Oceangate was widely recognised at the time within the global luxury travel sector. However, Quintessentially did not feature or promote this product on any of its platforms, nor was it proactively recommended to its clients and members or the wider market. At no stage was this Oceangate experience ever proactively marketed or suggested to any client or member.” It emphasized that Dawood was the one who initially mooted the idea and said that its involvement was “limited to providing a professional response to the original request.”

A spokesperson added: “Quintessentially is focused on providing the service our clients and members expect of us — whether just to book or otherwise — and we do, of course, alert them to any concerns that arise from our checks.”

Dawood’s book is a forensic account of her experience on board the Polar Prince, starting from her family’s night-time arrival after a delayed flight to a seemingly abandoned shipyard in St. John’s, Newfoundland — ironically, the trip revolved around the couple’s 21st wedding anniversary and her birthday.

Sourced from her journal and from transcripts — she recorded everything after the Titan went missing, she says, in order to report back to relatives on the ground — it’s a slow-burn horror story.

At first they laughed, she says, when they realized the ship for this luxury experience was a bare-bones icebreaker, and they’d be sleeping in bunk beds. They weren’t fazed by the unseasonal roughness of the sea, which flung them around as they headed out into the Atlantic, the Titan bouncing along behind them on a raft towed by the Polar Prince. They coped with the nausea, with their plates sliding across the tables as they tried to eat, with the sense of claustrophobia that came from being in the middle of the sea, without a single identifying point in sight.

There were two dives planned, with four passengers scheduled — “mission specialists,” as they were called, partly to avoid complying with regulations for passenger vessels, OceanGate co-founder told the US Coast Guard investigation, according to the Washington Post . OceanGate decided that Shahzada, Suleman and Hamish Harding would take the first dive. The second would take a passenger who, in the book, she nicknames JB. After his planned dive partner canceled, JB would be the lucky recipient of a private dive. He would soon find out just how lucky he was.

Christine Dawood and her daughter waved Shahzada and Suleman goodbye at 9 a.m. on June 18, 2023, blowing them a kiss as the sub disappeared underwater.

“It was fun,” she says, simply.

Courtesy Christine Dawood

On the Polar Prince, she recounts in her book, Suleman had admitted that the adventure was far beyond his comfort zone. When she had suggested he didn’t go, he replied that that discomfort was exactly why he wanted to push himself.

That morning, he put on his favorite red hoodie and boarded the Zodiac boat that took them to where the Titan and its raft bobbed on the waves. From the Polar Prince, Dawood watched Shahzada joking with Hamish — the pair had become friends. “They were waving at me and smiling and just driving away,” she remembers. “I was happy for them.”

Was there any jealousy that she wasn’t going? “Wistfulness,” she says. “I wouldn’t have wanted to have the whole going down and up, but the ‘down there’ would have been nice. I was waiting for them to reach the bottom, then I’d go up to the bridge and live with the experience with them, because we were supposed to get their messages of what they were seeing. Then I would have felt I was seeing it with them.”

Tired and seasick, she was having coffee with JB when a woman, who she won’t identify, came into the mess room and announced casually that they’d lost contact with the sub.

“I didn’t know what to do with that sentence,” she says. “OK, and now what? It didn’t register.”

OceanGate Expeditions/Handout/EyePress News/Shutterstock

She went up to the bridge and was reassured that it was “normal.”

It took four full days for the crew to acknowledge that something catastrophic had happened to the sub. In the book, Dawood comes across as the person with the most concerns throughout the wait, while OceanGate operatives reassure her. They might be stuck on the seabed or in the wreckage, they suggest. They could have lost contact and been coming up normally. They scan the sea for signs of the Titan bobbing on the surface, and minimize her concerns about dwindling oxygen supplies. They liaise with the coastguard and the flotilla of ships with ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) and other deep-sea equipment that were coming to help.

In the meantime they feed her, organize movie screenings, poker games and a “jam session.” Not everyone took part — Dawood kept to herself, and she says that a couple of people on board became “hysterical.”

She remained stoical. “I didn’t need to get into crisis as well — I felt, OK, we’ve got this, we have plans on how to get them back up,” she says. “If I’d freaked out that would not help the rescue mission, it would not help the people around me trying to help them, and it would certainly not have helped me.”

Instead, she set herself targets of making it through hour by hour, briefing to briefing, meal to meal. “It’s like when you’re on a walk — OK, I’m going to get to that tree and then I’m going to rest. And then at that tree, you’re like, Oh, I still have some energy, I’m going to go to the next tree.” She tried not to think about the darkness down there at the bottom of the ocean. “It’s a different kind of darkness, right? There’s literally no light. Neither Shahzada or Suleman were very good with darkness.”

At no point did she think that they might already be dead. She was, she says, in denial.

U.S. Coast Guard/Handout/Getty Images

On June 22, the US Coast Guard said it had found wreckage on the oceanbed, 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, which lies at a depth of 13,000 feet. The Titan had suffered a catastrophic implosion; the five men had died before their brains had even had time to register what was happening.

“It’s the best version of the worst thing that can happen,” says Dawood now. Her voice falters as she remembers her worst fear — that they would be brought to safety, but run out of oxygen on the way up. “If they’d suffocated I would not be where I am today,” she says.

What Dawood went through in the aftermath of the tragedy is beyond what many could endure. First there was the media storm — “a juicy story about rich people,” as she calls it. She had to leave the “godforsaken ship,” as she terms the Polar Prince, disguised from the cameras. With her in-laws, she arranged for prayers to be said for Shahzada and Suleman, both Muslims, in St John’s — Islam normally requires a swift burial, though if there’s no body, special prayers can release the souls.

She was criticized by some for not seeming emotional enough in the one interview she gave in a bid to curtail media attention. And then she had to come home. “There were no bodies to bring back, all we had was their bags. I put them in Suleman’s room and didn’t look at them for months,” she says.

Repatriating their remains — two small boxes of “ slush ” — became a bureaucratic nightmare. The men had died in international waters, the Polar Prince was Canadian, and the rescue had been US-led. Their remains had been brought to a Canadian port, but the Dawoods lived in the UK. Legally they should have been cremated, but cremation isn’t allowed in Islam. Even with a lawyer, it took nine months.

“They had to make sure the DNA was properly separated so that we didn’t get parts from somebody else,” she says. “And then at some point I finally got the message. The flight number. They’re on their way.”

The mental trauma caused physical symptoms. She says she developed vertigo, blurred vision, and couldn’t walk in a straight line. She planned to go to the US for the public hearings held by the US Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation in September 2024, but was too unwell to leave the house. Her family doctor, she says, “saved my life many times over.”

Eventually, she contacted a private clinic specializing in psychosomatic medicine in Germany. “I guess there is a benefit if things are very public — I wrote that my husband and son died in that accident around midnight, and they called me at 8 a.m. and said, ‘We have a place for you,’” she says, smiling. “And then I just went.”

The two months she spent there broke the cycle. Without it, she says, “I might be on a psychiatric ward now.” Her experience is the motivation for her next chapter: launching a similar center in the UK. Due to open by the start of 2028, it will be the country’s first.

Three years on, that center is becoming Dawood’s next chapter. “Sometimes I wake up now and that’s the first thought in my mind, not the grief,” she says. “It was quite a profound realization — I can think about something else. I want to help people. I don’t think grief should be experienced alone.”

Nargeolet’s family have sued OceanGate , and Dawood says she’s been asked to join lawsuits, but doesn’t want to out of self-preservation. “I don’t want to be consumed by anger,” she says. “I want to be able to look at their pictures and smile.” It’s notable that while she can discuss the details of her relatives’ deaths, she doesn’t mention Stockton Rush by name. She has never heard from OceanGate, she says, not even formal condolences.

In the meantime, she takes solace in nature — walking in the Surrey Hills south of London, through a forest of 1,000-year-old yew trees nearby, and feeling connected to Shahzada and Suleman when she’s by the sea. Sometimes she still expects them to walk through the door, she says; if she sees a young man in a red hoodie, she startles, thinking it’s Suleman. Chatting in her home, she occasionally slips into the present tense when talking about them.

But through her grief, Dawood is trying to live. She has been on vacation — even to visit friends in Canada. Flying over the North Atlantic was, she says, “very, very uncomfortable.”

Writing the book brought out Titanic fans, who came to the signings. Why does she think so many people are intrigued by the story?

“Well, it’s a tragedy, isn’t it?” she shrugs. “I think humans are always fascinated by tragedy.

“Loss of life in a non-natural way is always a fascination, isn’t it? We’re just programmed to prefer the most gory kinds of stories.”

在新冠疫情封锁期间，克里斯汀·达伍德在浏览 Instagram 时，看到了一些让她瞠目结舌的东西。

“我当时就想，‘那是假的，’”她回忆道。

她把手机递给丈夫——她说，并非出于真正的兴趣，而是出于惊讶。他被深深吸引了。

“他说，‘查清楚是不是真的’，我说，‘这肯定是假的。’但他又说，‘不，你得查清楚’，所以我问了我们的旅行社。然后他们回复我们说，‘是啊，有可能。’我就想，‘真的吗？’”

那天浏览Instagram的经历对达乌德来说是一个意义重大的转折点。她原本以为是电脑生成的视频，实际上是“泰坦号”潜水器的真实影像。“泰坦号”是一艘专门建造来潜入大西洋海底，带领游客前往泰坦尼克号残骸的潜水器。

她的丈夫沙赫扎达也想去。

每个人都知道故事的结局。2023年6月18日，泰坦号货轮从泰坦尼克号船头脱落，船上五人瞬间遇难。沙赫扎达·达乌德就是其中之一。他19岁的儿子苏莱曼当时就在他身边。

他们与同行的游客哈米什·哈丁、曾数十次前往泰坦尼克号的深海潜水员保罗-亨利·纳尔戈莱特以及建造了泰坦号的海洋之门公司（OceanGate）的斯托克顿·拉什一同遇难——后来美国海岸警卫队证实，海洋之门公司早就知道泰坦号的缺陷。

现在，在美国海岸警卫队、国家运输安全委员会及其加拿大同行发布了关于该船缺陷以及 OceanGate 的“有毒工作场所文化”和“为逃避监管审查而采取的恐吓策略”的严厉报告之后，克里斯汀·达伍德准备开口说话了。

她的书《九十六小时：一位妻子和母亲绝望地寻找失踪的泰坦号潜艇》于五月出版——她说，这本书是她将自己的痛苦“倾泻”在纸上的成果。

自悲剧发生以来的三年里，达伍德表示，她一直在与创伤后遗症作斗争，亲历了“海洋门”事件的调查，并经历了令人愤怒的官僚主义斗争，才得以将丈夫和儿子的遗骸送回故土。作为一名拥有心理学学位的生命教练，她现在正将悲痛转化为帮助他人的力量，并计划明年在英国开设一家身心疾病和创伤治疗中心。

“我一直刻意保持沉默，不想和任何人说话，”她说。“那为什么现在要说呢？我想让他们发出自己的声音，展现新闻标题背后的人。他们都是可爱的人，有自己的优点和缺点，有自己的怪癖。”

“我正慢慢地开启康复中心的新阶段，我永远无法彻底结束这一篇章，但我认为这本书为它画上了句号，现在我可以专注于下一件事，把公众抛在脑后了。”

达伍德的回忆录笔触含蓄，从她与沙赫扎达在她的故乡德国相遇的那天开始，到他们在纽芬兰圣约翰斯为遇难者举行的祈祷仪式结束。她以令人揪心的细节，讲述了全家乘坐“极地王子号”（Polar Prince）——这艘破冰船曾作为“泰坦号”在北大西洋最后一次不幸探险的任务指挥中心——的旅程，以及在潜艇被报告失踪后，她焦急等待的96个小时。

她还带着痛苦的回忆，写下了他们决定去沉船遗址的经过。最初，她原本计划和沙赫扎达一起下到沉船遗址。但她把自己的位置让给了苏莱曼，想给他们父子俩留下一段难忘的经历。

“我当时并没有立刻感到兴奋，”她在伦敦郊外的家中说道，她和女儿仍然住在那里，当时她正在家中看到那条 Instagram 帖子。

达伍德患有幽闭恐惧症——即使是长途飞行对她来说也是一种折磨。她说，她的丈夫也有同样的毛病。但沙赫扎达对参观沉船残骸的想法非常兴奋——并且做好了克服幽闭恐惧症的准备——所以她自告奋勇地陪他一起去。“我喜欢探索自然，比如去森林里走走或者徒步旅行，”她说。“这对他来说有点超出舒适区，但他愿意和我一起去。所以我也愿意陪他去。”

苏莱曼也很感兴趣，但他第一次看到广告时年纪太小，还不能跳水。

灾难发生后，苏莱曼对泰坦尼克号的痴迷引起了广泛关注。这位19岁的年轻人甚至用乐高积木制作了一个泰坦尼克号模型——至今仍摆放在他家的厨房里。

但达乌德说，泰坦尼克号只是苏莱曼因家庭旅行而产生的无数兴趣之一。

泰坦号上的另一位游客哈丁是个热衷冒险的人，而达乌德一家则更喜欢舒适惬意的假期，希望能有所收获。“我们喜欢干净的厕所和舒适的床——我们非常注重舒适，”她说道。沙赫扎达是个历史迷，所以他们一家曾去过黎巴嫩，参观古老的“上帝雪松”森林，腓尼基人曾用这片森林建造船只，使之成为地中海最著名的航海家。他们还去过英国的侏罗纪海岸，在海滩上寻找化石。他们参观过博物馆，欣赏过从海底打捞上来的沉船残骸。2011年，他们住在新加坡时，还参观了一个关于泰坦尼克号的展览，其中展出了纳尔戈莱特从沉船残骸中打捞出来的物品。

“这就像雪松、帕特农神庙、罗马斗兽场，或者埃菲尔铁塔的建造方式一样，是我们感兴趣的东西，”她说。

展览入口处会给参观者分配一位泰坦尼克号真实乘客的名字，出口处则会揭晓此人是否在沉船事故中幸存。“展览做得非常棒，”她说。“他们展出了原件：衣服、船体残骸等等。考虑到沉船深度，能够把这些物品全部打捞上来真是太神奇了。”

“现在回想起来，苏莱曼当时确实很着迷，但他也试着画了一幅安迪·沃霍尔的画像，因为我们也去看了那个展览，”她补充道。“他当时很感兴趣，而且他还年轻。我们觉得，‘这真的很有意思，背后的历史和故事也很有意思’，但我们并没有特别痴迷。那一天过得很愉快，我们一家人之后还去吃了点心。”

漫长的疫情让苏莱曼有机会进一步发展他对潜水的兴趣。等到旅行恢复正常时，他已经到了可以登上“泰坦号”的年龄。达伍德一家原本计划尝试哈德逊峡谷潜水，这项潜水也是由OceanGate公司提供的。“我想他们去哈德逊峡谷潜水也会很开心，”她说道，并补充说，她的家人更感兴趣的是能够让他们潜到如此深海的技术，而不是那艘著名的沉船本身。但是，随着疫情封锁的结束，他们和其他人一样，渴望完成一次人生清单上的旅行。“我们决定，好吧，那就直接挑战最难的一次吧。”

达伍德说，过去十年，他们一家一直通过高端礼宾服务公司Quintessentially预订假期。当她把泰坦号的Instagram视频发给他们后，他们立即回复并表示可以安排行程。“他们没有提出任何异议——立刻就帮我联系上了，”她说。“他们非常兴奋——和我一起通话。”

据CNN看到的邮件显示，Quintessential公司安排了Dawood夫妇与OceanGate公司的首次通话。Dawood夫妇支付定金后，Rush和他的妻子Wendy（当时是OceanGate公司的公关总监）飞往伦敦与他们会面。“我当时觉得这是件好事——他们正在努力，让我们放心，”她现在说道。尽管她认为Rush的大部分说辞都是“吹牛”，但她还是相信了一些基本内容。“他一直在谈论研究，后来我们发现那完全是胡说八道，”她说。“他说他们和NASA合作，正在和一些大学一起做研究，所以我们就想，好吧。结果这些都不是真的。”（NASA曾就复合材料船体方案咨询过OceanGate公司，但拒绝了该公司在新闻稿中使用其名称的请求，以免被误解为NASA的背书。）

尽管她信任她的旅行顾问会尽职尽责地做好安全调查，但达伍德自己也做了些调查。在​​她的书中，她描述了自己搜索潜水器事故统计数据却一无所获的经历。“而且我知道纳尔戈莱特会和我们一起去。他可是下潜过30次的人……人们都叫他‘泰坦尼克先生’。我怎么可能不信任这样的人呢？”

2025年，美国海岸警卫队海事调查委员会（MBI）的报告指出，OceanGate公司在2022年的一次潜水作业后，未能对船体异常情况进行分析。报告称，该潜艇“设计、认证、维护和检验流程的不足”是造成此次灾难的主要原因，此外，OceanGate公司“有毒的工作场所文化”以及监管框架和举报人保护机制的不完善也是造成灾难的原因。报告认为，这五起死亡事件“本可避免”。

达伍德在书中写道，一位调查员告诉她不要走上事后诸葛亮的痛苦之路。

“调查负责人对我说，‘你不可能事先知道，’”她现在回忆道。如今，她希望旅游业能受到更严格的监管。“如果你找旅行社，就是把信任寄托在他们的专业知识上，”她说，“那是他们的工作，对吧？”她觉得通过旅行社预订更有安全感。CNN查阅的电子邮件显示，达伍德在写给Quintessentially旅行社的信中多次提到她对这次旅行的担忧，而且在她搁置了泰坦尼克号之旅的预订后，该公司也不止一次地重新提起这个计划。

Quintessentially 在一份声明中表示：

“Oceangate当时在全球高端旅游领域广受认可。然而，Quintessentially并未在其任何平台上展示或推广该产品，也未主动向其客户、会员或更广泛的市场推荐。在任何阶段，Quintessentially都从未主动向任何客户或会员推销或推荐过Oceangate体验。”声明强调，Dawood是最初提出这一想法的人，并表示Quintessentially的参与“仅限于对最初的请求做出专业回应”。

一位发言人补充道：“Quintessentially 致力于提供客户和会员期望的服务——无论是预订还是其他服务——当然，我们也会将我们在检查中发现的任何问题告知他们。”

达伍德的书是对她在“极地王子号”上的经历的详细记述，从她一家人在航班延误后于夜间抵达纽芬兰圣约翰斯一个看似废弃的造船厂开始——具有讽刺意味的是，这次旅行恰逢这对夫妇结婚 21 周年纪念日和她的生日。

故事取材于她的日记和笔录——她说，泰坦号失踪后，她记录了一切，以便向地面上的亲属汇报——这是一个缓慢展开的恐怖故事。

她说，起初他们得知这次奢华之旅的船只竟然是一艘简陋的破冰船，而且他们要睡上下铺时，都忍不住笑了。他们并没有被反常的汹涌海浪吓倒，在驶入大西洋的途中，海浪颠簸得他们摇晃不定，“泰坦号”则在“极地王子号”拖曳的木筏上，在他们身后颠簸前行。他们忍受着恶心，努力吃饭时盘子在桌子上滑动，忍受着身处茫茫大海中央、视野中没有任何参照物所带来的幽闭恐惧感。

据《华盛顿邮报》报道，OceanGate联合创始人向美国海岸警卫队透露，他们计划进行两次潜水，并安排了四名乘客——他们被称为“任务专家”，部分原因是想规避客船的相关规定。OceanGate决定由Shahzada、Suleman和Hamish Harding进行第一次潜水。第二次潜水则安排了一位乘客，书中她给这位乘客起了个绰号叫JB。由于原定的潜水伙伴取消了行程，JB幸运地获得了这次私人潜水的机会。他很快就会发现自己有多幸运。

2023年6月18日上午9点，克里斯汀·达伍德和她的女儿向沙赫扎达和苏莱曼挥手告别，并在潜艇消失在水下时向他们送上飞吻。

“挺好玩的，”她简单地说。

感谢 Christine Dawood 提供图片

她在书中回忆道，在“极地王子号”上，苏莱曼曾坦言这次冒险远远超出了他的舒适区。当她建议他不要去时，他回答说，正是这种不适感促使他想要挑战自我。

那天早上，他穿上最喜欢的红色连帽衫，登上橡皮艇，前往泰坦号及其木筏在波浪中起伏的地方。在“极地王子号”上，达乌德看着沙赫扎达和哈米什开着玩笑——两人成了朋友。“他们朝我挥手，笑着，然后就开车走了，”她回忆道，“我真为他们高兴。”

她有没有嫉妒她没去？“有点惆怅，”她说。“我并不想经历整个下坡再上坡的过程，但‘下去’那段体验应该很不错。我当时在等他们到达谷底，然后我再上桥，和他们一起感受那段经历，因为我们应该能接收到他们所见所闻的信息。那样的话，我就会感觉自己和他们一起看到了这一切。”

她又累又晕船，正和 JB 一起喝咖啡，这时一个她不愿透露姓名的女人走进餐厅，漫不经心地宣布他们与潜艇失去了联系。

“我不知道该怎么回应那句话，”她说。“好吧，那现在怎么办？我完全没反应过来。”

OceanGate Expeditions/Handout/EyePress News/Shutterstock

她走到桥上，得到了“一切正常”的保证，这让她安心了不少。

整整四天后，船员们才意识到潜艇发生了灾难性的事故。在书中，达伍德是等待期间最焦虑的人，而“海洋之门”特工则不断安抚她。他们猜测潜艇可能被困在海底或残骸中，也可能只是失去了联系，原本正在正常上升。他们扫描海面，寻找“泰坦”号浮出水面的迹象，并尽量减轻她对氧气即将耗尽的担忧。他们与海岸警卫队以及前来救援的配备遥控潜水器（ROV）和其他深海设备的船队保持联系。

与此同时，他们给她提供食物，组织电影放映、扑克游戏和“即兴演奏会”。并非所有人都参与其中——达伍德一直独来独往，她说船上有几个人变得“歇斯底里”。

她保持着冷静。“我不需要让自己也陷入危机——我觉得，好吧，我们能搞定，我们有办法让他们重新站起来，”她说。“如果我惊慌失措，那对救援行动没有帮助，对周围试图帮助他们的人也没有帮助，当然对我自己也没有帮助。”

相反，她给自己设定了目标，一小时一小时地熬过去，一次又一次地参加简报，一顿又一顿地吃饭。“就像散步一样——好，我要走到那棵树那里休息。然后到了那棵树那里，你会想，哦，我还有点精力，我要去下一棵树。”她尽量不去想海底的黑暗。“那是一种不同的黑暗，对吧？那里真的没有任何光亮。沙赫扎达和苏莱曼都不太擅长应对黑暗。”

她从未想过他们可能已经死了。她说，她当时一直不愿接受这个事实。

美国海岸警卫队/图片提供/盖蒂图片社

6月22日，美国海岸警卫队宣布在距离泰坦尼克号船首1600英尺（约488米）的海底发现了残骸，泰坦尼克号沉没在13000英尺（约4096米）深的海底。泰坦尼克号遭遇了灾难性的内爆；船上五名船员甚至来不及反应过来就已身亡。

“这是最糟糕的情况中最好的结果，”达伍德现在说道。她的声音颤抖着，回忆起自己最害怕的事情——他们虽然被救到安全的地方，却在上升途中耗尽氧气。“如果他们窒息而死，我就不会有今天的成就了，”她说。

这场悲剧发生后，达乌德所经历的痛苦远超常人所能承受。首先是媒体的狂轰滥炸——正如她所说，“这是一则关于富人的劲爆故事”。她不得不离开那艘被她称为“被上帝遗弃的船”的“极地王子号”，并乔装打扮躲避媒体的镜头。她和公婆一起安排在圣约翰斯为沙赫扎达和苏莱曼（两人都是穆斯林）举行祈祷仪式——伊斯兰教通常要求尽快安葬，但如果没有遗体，特殊的祈祷仪式可以解救亡灵。

为了减少媒体关注，她接受了一次采访，但因为在采访中表现得不够情绪化而受到一些人的批评。之后，她不得不回家。“没有尸体可以带回来，我们只有他们的行李。我把行李放在苏莱曼的房间里，几个月都没去看，”她说。

运送他们的遗骸——两小盒“冰沙”——成了一场官僚主义的噩梦。两人死于国际水域，“极地王子号”是加拿大船只，救援行动由美国主导。他们的遗骸被运到加拿大港口，但达乌德一家居住在英国。按法律规定，他们应该火化，但伊斯兰教不允许火葬。即使有律师，运送遗骸也耗时九个月。

“他们必须确保DNA被正确分离，以免我们得到其他人的DNA片段，”她说。“然后，我终于收到了消息。航班号。他们正在来的路上。”

精神创伤引发了她的身体症状。她说自己出现了眩晕、视力模糊，而且无法直线行走。她原本计划于2024年9月前往美国参加美国海岸警卫队海事调查委员会举行的公开听证会，但由于身体状况不佳，无法出门。她说，她的家庭医生“多次救了我的命”。

最终，她联系了德国一家专门治疗心身疾病的私人诊所。“我想，如果事情公开化，或许会有好处——我写道，我的丈夫和儿子在午夜左右的事故中丧生，他们早上8点就打电话给我说，‘我们这里有个地方可以收留你，’”她笑着说。“然后我就去了。”

她在那里度过的两个月打破了恶性循环。她说，如果没有那段经历，“我现在可能还在精神病院里。”这段经历激励她开启人生新篇章：在英国创办一家类似的中心。该中心预计将于2028年初开业，届时将成为英国首家此类机构。

三年过去了，这个中心成为了达伍德人生的新篇章。“现在我有时醒来，脑海中浮现的第一个念头就是这个中心，而不是悲伤，”她说。“这是一个非常深刻的领悟——我可以思考其他事情。我想帮助别人。我不认为悲伤应该独自承受。”

纳尔戈莱特的家人已经起诉了OceanGate公司，达伍德说她也被邀请加入诉讼，但出于自我保护，她不想加入。“我不想被愤怒吞噬，”她说，“我只想看着他们的照片微笑。”值得注意的是，虽然她可以谈论亲人去世的细节，但她从未提及斯托克顿·拉什的名字。她说，她从未收到过OceanGate公司的任何消息，甚至连正式的慰问都没有。

与此同时，她从大自然中寻求慰藉——漫步于伦敦南部萨里山，穿过附近一片千年紫杉林，在海边漫步时，她感觉与沙赫扎达和苏莱曼心意相通。她说，有时她仍然期待着他们推门而入；如果看到一个穿着红色连帽衫的年轻人，她会吓一跳，以为是苏莱曼。在家中聊天时，她偶尔会用现在时谈论他们。

尽管悲痛欲绝，达伍德仍在努力生活。她去度假了——甚至还去加拿大探望朋友。她说，飞越北大西洋“非常非常难受”。

这本书的出版吸引了众多《泰坦尼克号》的粉丝前来参加签售会。她认为为什么这么多人对这个故事感兴趣呢？

“嗯，这的确是一场悲剧，不是吗？”她耸了耸肩。“我觉得人类总是对悲剧着迷。”

“非自然死亡总是令人着迷，不是吗？我们天生就更喜欢血腥的故事。”