Like the other passengers on the missing submarine, Shahzada Dawood loves adventure.
For the British Pakistani businessman, 48, who boarded the ship with his 19-year-old son Suleman, the expedition to the wreck of the Titanic followed a years-long passion for science and discovery, according to friends and family .
« Travel, science, it’s in his DNA, » said Ahsen Uddin Syed, a friend of Mr. Dawood who worked with him at Engro Corporation, a business conglomerate where Mr. Dawood is the vice president.
Mr. Syed said Mr. Dawood loves Star Trek and Star Wars, and is also passionate about nature, often traveling to distant places and sharing pictures of his adventures.
« He’s a scout, » said Mr. Syed.
Like his father, Suleman Dawood also loves science fiction, according to a statement from Engro. He also plays volleyball and has a keen interest in solving Rubik’s cubes.
Elder Dawood’s Instagram profile is covered in high-definition images of birds, flowers and landscapes, ranging from the Greenland ice cap and Shetland penguins to a bird in London with the caption ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’.
“Do adventures never end?” Mr. Dawood wrote in a Facebook post last year from a trip to Iceland, quoting Bilbo Baggins from « The Fellowship of the Ring. » « I guess not. Someone else always has to carry the story forward.
Khalid Mansoor, another former colleague of Mr Dawood’s, said that when the two worked together, Mr Dawood was a passionate advocate for the environment. He is also the administrator of the SETI Institute, an organization dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
« The situation is extremely serious, » the institute wrote in a statement on Tuesday. « We are harboring every hope for a successful rescue mission and the safe return of our brother and all who were aboard. »
The Dawood family declined to comment as some of them traveled to Canada, their research stopover, an Engro spokeswoman said.
Shahzada Dawood and his wife Christine, who live in Britain, also have a daughter, Alina.
« May Shahzada and Suleman come back to us safely, » Mr. Dawood’s sister Sabrina Dawood wrote in a Facebook message.
Salman Masud contributed report.
