Director James Cameron, who created the 1997 blockbuster hit Titanic, talked about the submersible that was carrying five people, who went to see the Titanic’s wreckage. The director revealed that he has been on 33 dives to the wreckage.
The five people were found dead after the wreckage of the submersible was discovered on Thursday morning, about 1,600 feet away from the Titanic’s wreckage. Cameron had warned the company back in 2018 stating that a “catastrophic” event could take place. No one approved of this plan and now five people, a British billionaire, two members of a Pakistani business family, a Titanic expert, and the CEO of OceanGate, lost their lives.
James Cameron has seen the wreckage of the Titanic 33 times
In a recent interview with BBC News, the director of 1997’s Titanic, James Cameron revealed that he has completed 33 dives to the Titanic’s wreckage, which sits at roughly 12,000 feet under the water’s surface. Cameron said,
“I actually calculated that I’ve spent more time on the ship than the captain did.” He then added, “I felt in my bones what had happened. For the sub’s electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously – sub’s gone.”
The director added that as soon as he discovered that the submersible went missing, he talked to his “contacts in the deep submersible community” and got complete information about their mission.
All five people in the submersible were reported dead
The wreckage of the submersible was discovered by an unmanned deep-sea robot on Thursday morning. It has been announced that all five people in the submersible died due to an implosion, something which Cameron warned the company about. Cameron said,
“Their comms were lost, and navigation was lost – and I said instantly, you can’t lose comms and navigation together without an extreme catastrophic event or high, highly energetic catastrophic event. And the first thing that popped to mind was an implosion.”
It was revealed that the navy had detected “an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion” shortly after the submersible lost contact with the outside world. Five people who died were British businessman Hamish Harding; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman; former French Navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet; and OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush.
James Cameron warned the company
Many people opposed this mission, including James Cameron. The director explained that many people had warned the company stating that “they are going on a path to catastrophe.” The Marine Technology Society (MTS) wrote a letter to OceanGate back in 2018 stating that the mission could result in “negative outcomes.”
Many people working at OceanGate left their jobs because of this risky mission. One former employee, David Lochridge, who was the company’s director of marine operations, raised concerns in an inspection report back in 2018.
Source: BBC News
