James Cameron compares Titan sub disaster to Titanic sinking, says he ‘wouldn’t have gotten in that sub’
For days the world has been following the story of the OceanGate Titan, the submersible that went missing on Sunday on a journey to view the wreckage of the Titanic. Debris from the vehicle was discovered yesterday, the result of a catastrophic implosion that killed all five passengers on board.
Many experts have been weighing in on this tragedy, and few people know the thrills and risks of deep-sea exploration like Oscar-winning director James Cameron. Not only did he direct the hit 1997 film Titanic, he is an avid ocean explorer — and has made 33 trips to see the Titanic’s wreckage.
Now, Cameron is opening up about about his feelings on this catastrophe — and reveals why he wouldn’t have boarded the Titan.
If you’ve seen many James Cameron films, you know that he’s obsessed with both cutting-edge technologies and taking viewers to unseen worlds, from outer space to the deepest depths of the ocean. This comes from Cameron’s real-life spirit of adventure.
“When I was a kid, I loved not only amazing ocean exploration but space, too,” Cameron told the New York Times in 2011. “I can think of no greater fantasy than to be an explorer and see what no human eye has seen before.”
Cameron has had quite a career as an explorer: in 2012, he became the first person to do a solo descent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. He has made over 70 submersible dives, including 33 to the wreck of the Titanic on the ocean floor.
So the crisis surrounding the Titan submersible on its way to view the Titanic wreck no doubt hit close to home for Cameron. But Cameron says he had concerns about the safety of the Titan sub, and accused OceanGate of cutting corners in regard to safety.
“I wouldn’t have gotten in that sub”
“I was very suspect of the technology that they were using. I wouldn’t have gotten in that sub,” Cameron told BBC, adding that he believes OceanGate “didn’t get certified because they knew they wouldn’t pass.”
“OceanGate shouldn’t have been doing what it was doing, I think that’s pretty clear,” Cameron told Reuters, saying he wished he had “been more vocal” about his concerns from the beginning. “I was unaware they hadn’t been certified because I wasn’t really studying it.”
Cameron said that Stockton Rush, the OceanGate CEO who was one of the fatalities in the sub’s implosion, asked him to go on a dive this year but he declined: “I wasn’t interested. There was a lot of concern about this outfit and this sub.”
Mr. Cameron, who has also designed his own submersible vehicles, told ABC News that he had concerns about the company’s decision to use carbon fiber as material, calling it “fundamentally flawed,” though Mr. Rush had defended his decision.
Knew it was an implosion
When the Titan went missing on Sunday, Cameron correctly suspected the sub had been destroyed in an implosion after speaking with peers in the deep submergence community. While people around the world held out hope and waited for further news, Cameron knew the five men on board had already perished.
“The only scenario that I could come up with in my mind that could account for that was an implosion… a shock wave event so powerful that it actually took out a secondary system that has its own pressure vessel and its own battery power supply,” Cameron told CNN.
“I got on the horn again with some other people, tracked down some intel that was probably of a military origin, although it could have been research—because there are hydrophones all over the Atlantic—and got confirmation that there was some kind of loud noise consistent with an implosion event.”
“That seemed to me enough confirmation. I let all of my inner circle of people know that we had lost our comrades. And I encouraged everybody to raise a glass in their honor on Monday.”
Compares disaster to Titanic
Mr. Cameron’s suspicions proved to be correct, as the Coast Guard announced yesterday that the debris they found was consistent with the “catastrophic loss” of the submersible’s pressure chamber, and that the five lives on board “have sadly been lost.”
That debris was found not far from the wreckage of the Titanic — and Cameron says there are close parallels between the two maritime disasters, both the result of throwing caution to the wind.
“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 up full speed into an ice field on a moonless night,” Cameron told ABC News. “And many people died as a result and for us very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site.”
James Cameron is an expert in undersea exploration, so it is definitely interesting to hear his take on the events of the past few days, and his concerns with the safety of the OceanGate vehicle. Our hearts continue to be with the victims and their loved ones.
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