Pakistani billionaire, teen son on missing Titanic sub

Shahzada Dawood, 48, is the vice chairman of Karachi-based Engro Corporation. (www.https://www.seti.org)

Shahzada Dawood, one of Pakistan’s richest men, and his teenage son, are among the five people onboard the missing submersible that was meant to take them to the Titanic shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean. The sub, named Titan, is still missing even as rescuers are racing against time to locate the vessel. The vessel could run out of oxygen by Thursday morning.

Contact with the small sub was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive in the mid-Atlantic on Sunday. The last known location was about 700 kilometers south of St. John's, Newfoundland in the United States. On Tuesday, a Canadian P-8 aircraft using sonar to search for the missing submersible detected underwater "banging" sounds in the North Atlantic, media reports said, citing US government communications.

Shahzada Dawdood, his 19-year-old son Sulaiman, British billionaire-explorer Hamish Harding, French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet and Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate Inc, that organised the underwater expedition, are the five passengers onboard the missing submersible.

Who is Shahzada Dawood?

Dawood, 48, is the vice chairman of Karachi-based Engro Corporation. The British-Pakistani, who joined the family business in 1996, belongs to a leading business family in Pakistan. 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, who live in Surbiton, southwest London, are in Canada for a month.

Shahzada Dawood is also a trustee of the Seti Institute, a research organisation in California, according to its website. It says he lives in the UK with his wife, Christine, and his children Suleman and Alina, and is in the Founder's Circle of the British Asian Trust. It says he lives in the UK with his wife, Christine, children Suleman and Alina, his dog Stig and cat Proteus.

Dawood completed his Masters in Global Textile Marketing from Philadelphia University in the US. He also has an LLB from Buckingham University in the UK.

He is also a supporter of British Asian Trust, a charity founded by King Charles III when he was the Prince of Wales.

Engro Corporation, one of Pakistan's largest conglomerates, has investments in fertilisers, vehicle manufacturing, energy and digital technologies.

The company, in a statement, said that all it knew was that contact was lost with the submersible craft. “There is limited information available beyond this that we know, and we humbly request that speculation and theorisation is avoided.” it said.

“We, at Engro, remain in prayer for their swift and safe return, and will share updates we may have as and when they come,” it added.

The Pakistan government has not commented on the missing Titanic sub so far, while the family and the company are not ready to offer any insight due to the sensitivity of the issues.