Titanic director James Cameron says he ‘knew submersible was destroyed’ four days before debris found
Titanic director James Cameron says he knew the Titan submersible had been destroyed less than 24 hours after the vessel lost contact.
In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, filmmaker Cameron said he learned of the acoustic findings within a day, and knew what it meant.
“I sent emails to everybody I know and said we’ve lost some friends. The sub had imploded. It’s on the bottom in pieces right now. I sent that out Monday morning,” he recalled.
Tributes paid to Titan passengers – live updates
Cameron said he wished he sounded the alarm on OceanGate’s technology earlier.
The director, who has dived to the Titanic wreck 33 times, said he is part of the small and close-knit submersible community.
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‘Catastrophic loss of pressure chamber’
When he heard that OceanGate was making a deep-sea submersible with a composite carbon fibre and titanium hull, Cameron said he was sceptical.
“I thought it was a horrible idea. I wish I’d spoken up, but I assumed somebody was smarter than me, you know, because I never experimented with that technology,” he said.
The five who were killed mark the first deep-sea fatalities for the industry, Cameron said – as he branded the rescue mission a “prolonged and nightmarish charade”.
Titan submersible in June 2021. File pic: OceanGate Expeditions via AP.
The director said the industry standard is to make pressure hulls out of contiguous materials such as steel, titanium, ceramic or acrylic, which are better for conducting tests.
“We celebrate innovation, right? But you shouldn’t be using an experimental vehicle for paying passengers that aren’t themselves deep ocean engineers,” Cameron said.
Cameron also noted the similarities between the Titan and the Titanic, saying both tragedies were preceded by unheeded warnings.
“Here we are again,” he said. “And at the same place. Now there’s one wreck lying next to the other wreck for the same damn reason.”
James Cameron posing with Titanic stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio after winning several Golden Globe Awards in 1998
‘I felt in my bones what happened’
In an interview with BBC News, Cameron described how he “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.
“I knew that sub was sitting exactly underneath its last known depth and position. That’s exactly where they found it.”
He added: “[It] felt like a prolonged and nightmarish charade where people are running around talking about banging noises and talking about oxygen and all this other stuff.
“I immediately got on the phone to some of my contacts in the deep submersible community.
“Within about an hour I had the following facts. They were on descent. They were at 3,500m, heading for the bottom at 3,800m.
“We now have another wreck that is based on unfortunately the same principles of not heeding warnings.”
Read more:
What happened to the Titan submersible?
Who were the five men on board Titan?
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Cameron became a deep-sea explorer in the 1990s while researching and making blockbuster Titanic, and is part owner of Triton Submarines, which makes submersibles for research and tourism.
Titanic, the 1997 film starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, won 11 Academy Awards and earned more than $2.25bn (£1.94bn) worldwide.
Anti-Trump protests took place across America on Saturday, with demonstrators decrying the administration’s immigration crackdown and mass firings at government agencies.
Events ranged from small local marches to a rally in front of the White House and a demonstration at a Massachusetts commemoration of the start of the Revolutionary War 250 years ago.
Thomas Bassford, 80, was at the battle reenactment with his two grandsons, as well as his partner and daughter.
He said: “This is a very perilous time in America for liberty. I wanted the boys to learn about the origins of this country and that sometimes we have to fight for freedom.”
At events across the country, people carried banners with slogans including “Trump fascist regime must go now!”, “No fear, no hate, no ICE in our state,” and “Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight,” referencing the university’s recent refusal to hand over much of its control to the government.
Some signs name-checked Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian citizen living in Maryland, who the Justice Department admits was mistakenly deported to his home country.
Read more: Donald Trump’s deportations explained
Pic: AP
People waved US flags, some of them held upside down to signal distress. In San Francisco, hundreds of people spelt out “Impeach & Remove” on a beach, also with an inverted US flag.
People walked through downtown Anchorage in Alaska with handmade signs listing reasons why they were demonstrating, including one that read: “No sign is BIG enough to list ALL of the reasons I’m here!”
Pic: AP
Protests also took place outside Tesla car dealerships against the role Elon Musk ahas played in downsizing the federal government as de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The protests come just two weeks after similar nationwide demonstrations.
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Organisers are opposing what they call Mr Trump’s civil rights violations and constitutional violations, including efforts to deport scores of immigrants and to scale back the federal government by firing thousands of government workers and effectively shuttering entire agencies.
The Trump administration, among other things, has moved to shutter Social Security Administration field offices, cut funding for government health programs and scale back protections for transgender people.
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