James Cameron On Titan Submarine Loss: “Struck By The Similarity Of The Titanic Disaster Itself”
Titanic filmmaker James Cameron spoke out Thursday about the loss of the Titan submarine that had dived to explore the historic shipwreck.
“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself,” he told ABC News in an exclusive interview, “where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field.” Watch his interview below.
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The multiple Oscar winner and longtime ocean-diving enthusiast, who has made nearly three dozen dives to the Titanic wreckage, was commenting on today’s news from the Coast Guard that “a debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic” and that all five souls aboard are feared dead after a “catastrophic explosion.”
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Cameron also addressed the concerns voiced by experts about the safety of the 21-foot Titan.
“As a submersible designer myself, I designed and built us up to go to the deepest place in the ocean three times deeper than Titanic. So I understand the engineering problems associated with building this type of type of vehicle and all the safety protocols that you have to go through. And I think [it] is absolutely critical to really get the take-home message from our effort here is [that] deep submergence diving is a mature art. From the early ’60s, where there were a few accidents, nobody was killed in the deep submergence until now. [That’s] more time than between Kitty Hawk and the flight of the first 747.”
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Cameron also told ABC News that he “actually calculated that I spent more time on the [Titanic] than the captain did back in the day.”
Titanic sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912 after hitting an iceberg, killing about 1,500 passengers and crew. The wreckage was found in 1985, and inspired diving enthusiast Cameron to make Titanic. The film went on to win 11 Oscars and gross more than $2.26 billion worldwide. It remains among the Top 10 films of all time both domestically and worldwide, ranking No. 4 on the latter list.
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“I made Titanic because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie,” Cameron told Playboy in 2009. “The Titanic was the Mount Everest of shipwrecks, and as a diver I wanted to do it right. When I learned some other guys had dived to the Titanic to make an Imax movie, I said, ‘I’ll make a Hollywood movie to pay for an expedition and do the same thing.’ I loved that first taste, and I wanted more.”
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