She boarded the Titanic as a third class passenger at Cherbourg on Wednesday, April 10th 1912. She traveled together with her cousins Shawneene George Whabee, Tannous Thomas, Gerios Yousseff and Tannous Doharr.
officers of the ship carried Banoura to the last (collapsible C). She was never to see Hanna, his son, Tannous or Jirjis Yusuf again. The three male cousins of Banoura remained on board of the Titanic, they lost their lives in the disaster.
On the night of the 14th, Banoura was asleep when the collision took place, as were Hanna and his son. The father awoke with the shock of the crash and ran on deck to check out what had happened. Officers of the ship informed him that there was no immediate danger. He returned to tell them that they may as well go back to sleep.
Passengers did not know what to do. Fearing they may lose everything, many carried what they could from their belongings. They quickly came to realize that passengers were being boarded on the lifeboats and not their belongings. Hoping to retrieve them in a lifeboat into which they would be placed, passengers began to throw some personal things overboard from the deck of the sinking ship. Something fell at Banoura’s feet. It turned out to be a sack of rare coins. She picked it up and kept it with her while she waited to see what God had in store for her.
At about 1:30 a.m. she awoke to find water in the cabin. Quickly she woke her cousin who found that his son was not in his bed. During the night when the Titanic hit the iceberg, Banoura was below deck waiting with the other third class passengers. Hanna Tannous Muawwad told her to run up to the deck, as he needed to find his son. Both Banoura and Shaninah recalled that some first class passengers, those who were not permitted to board the lifeboats, ran down to the lower deck to assist in bringing steerage passengers above. They tried to urge the women and the children to leave. The two reasoned that due to the lack of comprehension of English and the instructions being given, these first class passengers came simply to help those they could. Banoura ran and among the confusion, found the young Tannous. She told him that his father was searching for him below and that he must go down at once to find him. There were two stairways, one leading towards the stern and one towards the bow. The boy went down one and the father came up the other. Banoura told her cousin that his son had just gone down to find him, pointing out to him the stairway. Hanna ran back to find him. It was assumed that either Banoura‘s two cousins were caught below deck or that the father was not able to locate his son and could not and would not save himself without him. Jiris Yusuf, another Syrian cousin traveling with her and Shaninah pushed the two women towards the lifeboats. Finally Banoura was saved thanks to Shawnee Abi Saab who took her by hand. They went to the main deck and ultimately to Collapsible Lifeboat C. There, the
The next few hours were hours of suffering. Minutes after being placed upon the lifeboat, Banoura saw the lights of the Titanic go out. Yet more vividly, she remembered the screams and the wails, the moans and the cries of those seeking help reverberated for two hours after the ship sank. It was extremely cold, so bitterly cold, that aboard the lifeboat, as she recounted, four Syrian men on the same boat died from the intense cold before the rescue ship, the Carpathia arrived. She also remembered the sight of another Syrian man who had not been taken aboard the lifeboat, jumping from the deck of the Titanic into the ocean. From the jump his arm struck a piece of ice, cutting him „from the wrist to the elbow, clear to the bone“. He managed to stay afloat until one of the other lifeboats picked him up out of the water. Half clad, she became numb and exhausted to a point that she could not remember clearly the arrival of the Carpathia. After disembarking from Carpathia in New York City on Thursday April 18th 1912, Banoura was taken to one of the local hospitals in New York. Later from the hospital she had been taken to the Hebrew Shelter and was one of the last ones to be released from it from among the Syrian survivors, along with another Syrian distant relative and travel companion Shaninah (Jirjis) Shanin Yusuf Wyhbah.