LONDON – “Titanic” director James Cameron says the search operation for a tourist submersible on the high seas turned into a “nightmare farce” that prolonged the agony for the families of the passengers.
Cameron told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Friday that he “felt in my bones” that the Titan submersible had been lost shortly after learning it had lost contact with the surface during its descent to the wreckage on the ocean floor. Atlantic.
He said reports in the media in the days that followed that the sub had a 96-hour supply of oxygen and that banging noises had been heard were a “prolonged, nightmare farce.”
“As far as I’m concerned, that was nothing more than a cruel and slow twist over four days,” he said. “Because I found out the truth on Monday morning.”
The Titan lifted off at 8 am Sunday and was reported lost about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland that afternoon. On Thursday, the US Coast Guard said wreckage had been found on the ocean floor. According to the authorities, the five people who were traveling aboard the submersible died when the vessel imploded.
Cameron, who has made more than 30 dives on the Titanic wreck, said he knew an “extreme catastrophic event” had occurred as soon as he learned the submersible had lost navigation and communications during its descent.
“That the electronics of the submarine failed, that its communications system failed and that its tracking transponder simultaneously failed: the submarine had disappeared,” he told the British network.
“There was no question to me. I knew the sub was exactly below its last known depth and position, and that’s exactly where they found it. There was no search. When they finally lowered an ROV that could go to that depth, they found it in a matter of hours. Probably in minutes.”
The filmmaker has been fond of oceanography since childhood and has made dozens of deep-sea dives, including one to the deepest point on Earth: the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.
Cameron said that “one of the saddest aspects of this is how preventable it actually was.”
“Now we have another shipwreck that is unfortunately based on the same principles of ignoring warnings,” he said.
Deep-sea explorers have raised concerns about OceanGate Expeditions’ Titan submersible, saying it was too experimental to carry passengers.
OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein told Times Radio that CEO Stockton Rush, who was one of those aboard the Titan, was “extremely committed to safety.”
“He was also extremely diligent in risk management, and was well aware of the dangers of operating in a deep ocean environment,” said Söhnlein, who no longer works for OceanGate.
