Pak-origin teen took Rubik's Cube on Titanic sub to create world record near shipwreck

Suleman Dawood (L) with his father Shahzada Dawood.

Suleman Dawood, the 19-year-old son of British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, had taken his Rubik's Cube with him on the ill-fated voyage to view the Titanic shipwreck, hoping to create a world record in the depths of the ocean. His father had even carried a camera to capture the moment, his mother told the BBC.

The submersible, which was revealed last Thursday, to have suffered a "catastrophic implosion", and all five members onboard the carrier were declared dead.

"He (Suleman) said, 'I'm going to solve the Rubik's Cube 3,700 metres below sea at the Titanic', Christine Dawood told the British broadcaster. She and her 17-year-old daughter, Suleman’s younger sister, were onboard Polar Prince, the submersible’s support vessel, when contact was lost with the five members in the submersible.

Suleman was a student at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. He was enrolled at the Strathclyde Business School and had recently completed his first year at the university in Glasgow.

His Amsterdam-based aunt, Azmeh Dawood, told Sky News last week that her nephew was “very, very not into doing it” but went ahead with the trip as a Father’s Day bonding experience.

His father was a member of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families. Shahzada Dawood, 48, was the vice chairman of Karachi-based Engro Corporation. His father, Hussain Dawood, 79, is the chairman of the Dawood Hercules Corporation (DH Corp), a big business entity in Pakistan with Engro Corporation as its subsidiary.

The Dawood family was spending a month in Canada before the dive. Contact was lost with the OceanGate submersible last Sunday, which happened to be Father’s Day, about an hour-and-a-half into its dive in the mid-Atlantic. A massive search operation was attempted to locate the vessel and those on board.