Titanic submersible implosion: James Cameron sees ‘terrible irony’ over Titan disaster

The director of the award-winning movie “Titanic” is speaking out about the OceanGate Titan disaster, calling it a “terrible irony.”

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He also had tough words for the company that embarked on the tourist excursions.

“OceanGate shouldn’t have been doing what it was doing. I think that’s pretty clear,” Cameron told BBC News, according to CBS News. “I wish I had been more vocal about that, but I think I was unaware that they weren’t certified because I wasn’t really studying it.”

But Cameron said that the company “didn’t get certified because they knew they wouldn’t pass” alleging that OceanGate had “cut corners” he told the BBC.

The submersible was not required to be certified, news outlets have reported.

Cameron, in addition to directing the film “Titanic,” has done 33 submersible dives to the wreckage of the doomed ocean liner.

He has also done a dive into the deepest known oceanic trench at 10,912 meters or about 35,800 feet in 2012. The RMS Titanic, and now the Titan, sits at about 3,810 meters or 12,500 feet.

Cameron said it was ironic that the Titanic and Titan suffered similar fates because of hubris.

“We now have another wreck that is based on unfortunately the same principles of not heeding warnings,” he said. “OceanGate were warned.”

Several people had warned OceanGate saying “You are going on a path to catastrophe,” Cameron said.

The New York Times said that Marine Technology Society sent OceanGate a letter in 2018, saying, the company’s “ experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry.”

A former employee of OceanGate also warned about potential safety issues as early as 2018, BBC News reported.

Maritime experts were also concerned about the materials used to craft the Titan, as well as the shape of the submersible, The Washington Post reported.

The Titan was made of carbon fiber in a cylindrical shape with two titanium ends to allow for more passengers. The titanium caps were found on the ocean floor apart from the cylinder, the Post reported.

OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, who is no longer with the company, said that the program to develop the Titan was “very robust,” countering Cameron’s and others’ claims.

“Any expert who weighs in on this, including Mr. Cameron, will also admit that they were not there for the design of the sub, for the engineering of the sub, the building of the sub and certainly not for the rigorous test program that the sub went through,” Sohnlein told the BBC.

Cameron added he knew what happened and where crews would find the remnants of the Titan.

The past week “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,” he told the BBC.

“I knew that sub was sitting exactly underneath its last known depth and position. That’s exactly where they found it,” Cameron added.

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Man shares 2022 trip on missing submersible 'Titan' Mike Reiss and his wife took a trip to the Titanic on the submersible "Titan" in 2022. (Mike Reiss)

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Titanic FILE PHOTO: On September 1, 1985, underwater explorer Robert Ballard located the world's most famous shipwreck. The Titanic lay largely intact at a depth of 12,000 feet off the coast of St. John's, Newfoundland. Using a small submersible craft, Ballard explored the wreck in 1986, taking a series of spectacular and haunting pictures and giving the world its first glimpse of the legendary ship in 73 years. (Ralph White/Getty Images)