- The youngest victim from the Titan submersible vessel was 19-year-old Suleman Dawood.
- He embarked on the vessel with his father Shahzada Dawood to bond with him, Suleman's aunt said.
- Suleman was "terrified" before starting the deep sea trip, his aunt told NBC News.
The aunt of the youngest victim aboard the Titan submersible said that her nephew was terrified prior to the trip, and joined in part to impress his father, who was also aboard.
Azmeh Dawood, the sister of passenger and Pakistani millionaire Shahzada Dawood, said that she spoke to Suleman, her nephew before the vessel departed. Suleman was "terrified," she told NBC News, but went on the trip with his father to bond with him over Father's Day weekend.
Azmeh told NBC News that Suleman "wasn't very up for it," prior to the trip. But her brother Shahzada Dawood was obsessed with the Titanic since his childhood.
On Thursday, after rescue officials linked debris to the missing vessel, OceanGate announced that the passengers aboard the ship are dead. Coast Guard officials said the submersible appears to have had a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," imploding in the ocean's depths.
An implosion such as that would have happened quickly, lasting only milliseconds, according to the Journal of Physics: Conference Series. It likely killed all the passengers instantly.
"If you gave me a million dollars," Azmeh Dawood told NBC, "I would not have gotten into the Titan."
Suleman Dawood was a "big fan of science fiction literature and learning new things" and enjoyed playing volleyball, according to the BBC. He studied at the University of Strathclyde and was in his first year at Strathclyde Business School, per the BBC.
His father, Shahzada Dawood, was the vice chairman of Engro Corporation, one of Pakistan's largest fertilizer companies, according to the BBC. He ran the telecom and agriculture-focused Dawood Hercules Corporation Limited as well as the Dawood Foundation, an organization focused on education access in Pakistan.
The BBC reported that the Dawood family traveled to Canada from London a month before Shahzada and Suleman embarked on the Titan.