James Cameron addresses Titan submersible tragedy: 'Struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster'
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Everett Collection James Cameron directing the 2005 documentary 'Aliens of the Deep'
James Cameron, the Oscar-winning Titanic director and deep-sea exploration enthusiast, is weighing in on the apparent loss of the Titan submersible and the five people aboard after a days-long rescue effort that captured worldwide attention.
Speaking to ABC News, Cameron noted that experts had voiced concerns about the OceanGate craft in the past, and he likened the presumed implosion of the submersible to the Titanic catastrophe itself.
"Many people in the community were very concerned about this sub," he said, "and a number of the top players in the deep-submergence engineering community even wrote letters to the company saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers, and it needed to be certified, and so on."
Cameron, who has made more than 30 dives to the Titanic wreck site, added that he was "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. And 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 — I think is just astonishing. It's really quite surreal."
As a submersible designer himself — he helped create the Deepsea Challenger and in 2012 piloted it to the deepest part of the Earth's ocean — Cameron said he's familiar with the challenges of underwater exploration and the importance of rigorous testing and safety precautions.
"It is absolutely critical for people to really get the take-home message from this, from our effort here, is [that] deep-submersible diving is a mature art," he said. "The safety record is the gold standard, absolutely — not only no fatalities, but no major incidents."
He added, "Of course [what happened with the Titan is] the nightmare that we've all lived with. Since all of us entered this field of deep exploration, we live with it in the back of our minds."
The Titan submersible lost contact with its mother ship Sunday, more than halfway into a planned dive to the wreckage of the Titanic. A massive search ensued, but hopes dimmed early Thursday when the U.S. Coast Guard announced that a debris field had been found near the site.
OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement that the pilot and four passengers were believed to "have sadly been lost."
"These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans," the company added. "We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew."
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