James Cameron has spoken about the Titan submersible tragedy that according to the US Coast Guard has claimed the lives of all five on board after a “catastrophic implosion”.
Cameron, the Titanic and Avatar franchise director and a veteran underwater explorer, told ABC News implosion was the “nightmare” everyone in the deep sea exploration community lives with in the back of their minds.
“Many people in the community were very concerned about this sub and a number of the top players in the deep submergence engineering community even wrote letters to the company [vessel operator OceanGate] saying what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and needed to be certified and so on.”
He continued, “I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result.
“For a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that’s going on all around the world, is astonishing. It’s quite surreal.” The Titanic expedition made its first dive on Sunday, to the Titanic’s wreckage, On Monday, a massive search and rescue effort was launched to locate the vessel before it ran out The US Coast Guard stated that the debris found near the Titanic contained pieces of the Titan. This The five on board would have died immediately.
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I’ve been down there may times,” said Cameron. “I know this wreck site very well. I’ve done 33 dives. From the 60s, where there were a few accidents but no one was killed, until now The time between the 60s and now, when there were only a few accidents but no deaths It was a record dive to a depth of 35,787ft (10,908m).
Among the five people on board the Titan was Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a 77-year-old former French Navy diver and Titanic wreck expert who was a friend of Cameron’s. “For him to die in this manner is almost impossible for my to process,” said the filmmaker.
