Titanic film director James Cameron says he was told MONDAY that the sound of the imploding Titan submarine had been detected, and claims the doomed ship’s carbon fiber hull was known to be unsuitable
- James Cameron, who directed the 1997 film Titanic and has dived the wreck more than 30 times, said he heard an implosion on Monday
- Cameron said he “watched over this whole kind of running around-looking-for-their-hair-in-the-fire for everyone for the next few days,” knowing it was “pointless.”
- He said the carbon fiber hull of the OceanGate submarine was fundamentally unsuitable for the expedition
James Cameron was told within 24 hours of the disappearance of the Titanic submarine that he had heard it implode, and “watched over this whole sort of everyone-running-around-with-their-hair-in-the-fire kind of, fully knowing now that it was pointless.’
The film director and deep-sea expert, who has made more than 30 dives to the Titanic’s wreckage, said Monday that the sound of a likely implosion had been recorded by underwater acoustic equipment.
“I tracked down some information that was probably military in origin, although it could have been research — because there are hydrophones all over the Atlantic — and got confirmation that there was a loud noise consistent with an implosion,” he said. . told CNN.
He said he wasn’t surprised, as he felt the carbon fiber hull of OceanGate Expedition’s submarine, named Titan, was fundamentally unsuitable.
Cameron, who directed the 1997 hit movie Titanic, said his dives were made in a ceramic submarine that was more resistant to the intense underwater pressure.
James Cameron told Anderson Cooper on Thursday night he wasn’t surprised the submarine had imploded — and he learned about its likely fate within 24 hours.
Cameron told Anderson Cooper on Thursday night that he was “a little heart sick with the outcome of this.”
But, he said, he’d had more time than most to come to terms with it.
“I’ve been living with it for a few days now, as have some of my colleagues in the deep immersion community,” he said.
“I was on a ship myself when this happened on Sunday.
“I heard about it for the first time on Monday morning. I immediately got on my network – because it’s a very small community in the deep immersion group – and found out about half an hour of some information that they had lost communication and lost tracking at the same time.
“The only scenario I could think of in my head that could explain that was an implosion. A shock wave so powerful it basically knocked out a secondary system that has its own pressure vessel and its own battery power, the transponder the ship uses to track where the sub is.’
Cameron, 68, said he started talking to friends and colleagues in the deep-sea industry.