James Cameron compares sub tragedy to Titanic disaster: ‘warnings went unheeded’
- The Titan submersible that went missing on Sunday imploded, killing all five on board, the US Coast Guard says
- Titanic director said the sub had been the source of widespread concern in the close-knit ocean exploration community
Cameron, 68, noted the hubris involved in both cases.
“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,” he told ABC News. “It’s a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded.”
Cameron himself has explored the Titanic wreckage an estimated 33 times, and his 1997 Oscar-winning film thrust the shipwreck back into the public limelight. Cameron has also directed underwater disaster movie The Abyss, and multiple deep-sea documentaries.
When not making box office behemoths, Cameron also enjoys deep sea exploration. He visited the ocean’s deepest point, the Mariana Trench, in 2012.
“Many people in the community were very concerned about (the OceanGate) sub,” Cameron told ABC News. “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 that it needed to be certified.”