James Cameron wishes he had warned about the Titan

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"Titanic" wreck: "You shouldn't use a test vehicle for paying passengers"

Photo: Mary Evans / IMAGO

James Cameron became a deep-sea explorer in the nineties when he made his film »Titanic«. He is co-owner of Triton Submarines, a company that manufactures its own submersibles – and has himself dived numerous times to the wreck of the "Titanic", which sank in 1912.

As a deep-sea expert, the director suspected shortly after the disappearance of the "Titan" on Sunday that the submersible might have imploded. The reason was that the "Titan" had not only lost its communication, but at the same time could no longer be tracked.

"The only scenario that came to my mind that could explain this was an implosion," Cameron told CNN on Friday. However, in the past few days, he too had cherished the "unnatural hope" that he was wrong, said the 68-year-old. But deep down, I knew that wasn't the case."

The U.S. Coast Guard announced on Thursday after days of searching that debris was found near the "Titanic" wreck, which belonged to the lost "Titan" with five people on board. The inmates are thus considered dead, the authorities assume an implosion as a result of a collapse of the hyperbaric chamber.

Cameron sees parallels between "Titanic" and "Titan"

Misfortune must be a lesson to adventurers, Cameron said. "If you board a vehicle, be it an airplane, a surface craft or a submersible, you should make sure that it has been tested by certification bodies," he said, referring to the recent criticism of the Titan operator for possible safety concerns.

The worst thing is that the tragedy could have been avoided, he said. As part of the small community of manned deep-sea exploration, he was also skeptical when he heard that OceanGate was making a deep-sea submersible with a hull made of carbon fiber and titanium composites, Cameron told Reuters.

"I thought it was a terrible idea. I wish I had spoken up, but I assumed someone was smarter than me," Cameron said. He admits that he has never experimented with this technology. "But it just sounded bad."

The exact cause of the implosion has not yet been determined, but Cameron, citing critics, suspects that a shell made of carbon fiber and titanium would lead to delamination and microscopic cracks, which could result in failure over time.

Other experts and an informant had already sounded the alarm in 2018 and criticized OceanGate for deciding against certification and in favor of operating it as a test vessel. There was no certification by third parties such as the American Bureau of Shipping or the classification society DNV.

"You shouldn't use a test vehicle for paying passengers who aren't deep-sea engineers themselves," Cameron complained. Both in the case of the "Titanic" and in the case of the "Titan" there were warnings that had not been heeded. The captain of the "Titanic" had steered the cruise ship on its maiden voyage on a moonless night through a dangerous Atlantic passage, although he knew about possible icebergs.

"Here we are again," said Cameron. "And in the same place. Now one wreck is lying next to the other wreck for the same damn reason."

In 1995, for his eleven-Oscar-winning film drama »Titanic« starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, Cameron organized diving trips with Mir-type research submarines and diving robots to show original footage of the real »Titanic«.

apr/dpa/Reuters