James Cameron compares submarine tragedy to Titanic sinking: ‘I was struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster’

Famed Hollywood director and Titanic researcher James Cameron has compared the tragic loss of the submarine Titan to the thing that may have led to the Titanic’s demise, overconfidence that led to disaster.

Cameron, who directed the Oscar-winning blockbuster “Titanic,” told ABC News Thursday that he had noticed similarities between the 1912 sinking of the British passenger liner and the breakdown of a submarine specially designed to visit what was left of the sunken ship.

Cameron said, “I was struck by the resemblance between the Titanic disaster itself, in which the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, yet he sailed at full speed through an ice field on a moonless night.” “Many people died as a result, and for us a very similar tragedy as the warnings went unheeded in the exact same location.”

Cameron, who is a submarine designer himself and has designed ships that can dive to depths three times deeper than where the Titanic lies, called Titanic’s carbon fiber construction “fundamentally flawed.”

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who was among the five passengers killed on the submarine, defended the decision to fabricate the Titan with the material, saying he believed a carbon-fiber submarine would have a better strength-to-buoyancy ratio than titanium. .

Cameron said he was particularly amazed at how the tragedy of the modern age unfolded, given the amount of diving that takes place all over the world without incident.

Cameron said that the global standard for submarine safety is the “gold standard,” especially considering that no one has died on the submarine yet. He added that while some accidents occurred in the 1960s, there have been no major accidents since then, and standards have improved greatly since then.

The Russian submarines that Cameron traveled to see the Titanic were built with “well-understood design methodologies” and operated by pilots with “an impeccable operating record,” Cameron said, adding that he had always had “great confidence” in those ships, despite the hostile surroundings. with the Titanic ship.

Other deep diving environments, which may contain marine life and other organisms but are mostly open, Cameron said, do not present the same risks as the Titanic wreck site, providing ample opportunity for the submarine to become entangled.

Cameron described an eight- to 10-story building with dangling metal – essentially a “quirky mess”.

However, since Cameron is always diving with a sub-two system, where there is another sub underwater alongside, he felt reassured that if they stumbled, there would be life support, communication, and strength.

“We always felt like we were in a fairly safe place,” he said.

Chris Goldfinger, a marine geologist at Oregon State University who has made at least two dozen deep-sea dives in the Pacific, also compared the sinking of the Titanic to the explosion of Titan, calling the latter to ABC News an “unprepared bandwagon.”

Goldfinger said Titan, which is operated by OceanGate, a private company that provides manned submersible assets and expertise for commercial, research and military applications, had no other submarine in the area or the amount of backup systems used by other ships.

Cameron said members of the deep diving community have sounded alarm bells about safety measures on Titan for some time.

“This is a mature art, and many people in the community are very concerned about this branch,” he said. “Also, a number of senior players in the deep submersible engineering community wrote letters to the company, saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and that it had to be certified, etc.”

In 2018, a former OceanGate employee alleged in a counterclaim that he was fired for raising concerns about quality control and testing for potential defects in the experimental submarine. OceanGate initially sued the engineer and submarine pilot, alleging breach of contract, fraud, and misappropriation of trade secrets—all allegations he denied.

In the complaint, OceanGate also alleged that the employee “is not an engineer and was not hired or requested to perform engineering services on Titan,” according to the filing. Associated Press.

The dispute was settled out of court. OceanGate has not made any statements regarding Titan’s safety since the search for the missing submarine began on Sunday.

In a 2021 statement, OceanGate said: “The Titan was built and designed in consultation with expert engineers and fabricators, and includes multiple redundant safety systems.”

Most submarines have “multiple methods of self-rescue”, such as the ability to detach the passenger-carrying ball from the rest of the ship, allowing it to then float to the surface. “Titan didn’t have nearly ‘much’ redundancy and the ability to self-save.”

“The same classic thing that got the Titanic into trouble in the first place is overconfidence and overconfidence in an unprepared car,” Goldfinger said.

Five people were aboard the Titan when it finally dived: Ocean Jet CEO Stockton Rush, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Daoud and his 19-year-old son Suleiman Daoud, British billionaire Hamish Harding and famed Titanic researcher and former commander of the French Navy, Paul-Henri Nargolet.

Through their shared passion, Cameron has been friends with Nargeolet for 25 years, calling him by his nickname “PH” when referring to the five victims who lost their lives on the submarine.

Nargolet was a “legendary French diver-pilot”, Cameron said, describing the diving community as “small”.

On Thursday, OceanGate released a statement that all five passengers had died.

“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood, his son Solomon Daoud, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargolet are unfortunately lost,” OceanGate said in a statement.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinctive spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” the statement continued. “Our thoughts are with these five souls and each member of their family during this tragic time. We mourn the loss of life and the joy they brought to all who knew him.”