“Titanic” director James Cameron “felt in [his] bones” that an “extreme catastrophic event” had happened to the Titan submersible as soon as he heard it had lost contact.
Cameron, who has traveled to the Titanic wreckage himself 33 times, said he had “no doubt” the sub was “gone” once he heard the submersible had lost contact 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive to view the remnants of the cruise liner.
The U.S. Coast Guard revealed Thursday that a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) found a “debris field” near the wreckage, where the crew of five explorers had been heading before losing contact.
“For the sub’s electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously – sub’s gone,” Cameron told the BBC.
‘TITANIC’ DIRECTOR JAMES CAMERON BREAKS SILENCE ON SUBMARINE DISASTER
James Cameron wishes he had sounded the alarm on the danger of OceanGate’s Titan submersible. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney)
“For me, there was no doubt. I knew that sub was sitting exactly underneath its last known depth and position, and that’s exactly where they found it. There was no search. When they finally got an ROV down there that could make the depth, they found it within hours. Probably within minutes.”
Cameron, who has long been a deep-sea explorer, said the media coverage of how much oxygen was left inside the submersible created a “prolonged and nightmarish charade.”
“That was just a cruel, slow turn of the screw for four days as far as I’m concerned,” he added. “Because I knew the truth on Monday morning.”
The Canadian film director wishes he would have sounded the alarm on Titan.
“I thought it was a horrible idea. I wish I’d spoken up, but I assumed somebody was smarter than me, you know, because I never experimented with that technology, but it just sounded bad on its face,” Cameron told Reuters in an interview.
Cameron first broke his silence regarding Titan on Thursday after it was revealed the Coast Guard had found parts of the submersible.
WATCH: MISSING TITAN SUB DEBRIS FOUND, ALL PASSENGERS BELIEVED TO BE DEAD
MISSING TITANIC SUBMARINE FOUND, CREW KILLED IN DEEP-SEA CATASTROPHE, COAST GUARD SAYS
From left to right, Suleman Dawood, Shahzada Dawood, Stockton Rush, Paul-Henry Nargeolet and Hamish Harding were aboard the OceanGate Titan submersible. (Engro Corp. | Reuters/Shannon Stapleton | @OceanGateExped/Twitter | Felix Kunze/Blue Origin via AP | Ocean Gate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result,” Cameron told ABC News.
“And for a very similar tragedy, where warnings went unheeded, to take place at the same exact site, with all the diving that’s going on all around the world, I think is just astonishing. It’s really quite surreal,” he concluded.
Cameron has also participated in other deep-sea explorations and even dove to the Mariana Trench in 2012 in the 24-foot Deepsea Challenger submersible.
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Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate exhibitions, was aboard the mission to view the Titanic. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton)
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who had been aboard the Titan submersible during the most recent mission, dismissed safety concerns regarding the sub in November.
“If you look at submersible activity over the last three decades, there hasn’t even been a major injury, let alone a fatality,” he said during an appearance on “Unsung Science.
“What worries us is not once you’re underwater,” Rush explained at the time. “What worries me is when I’m getting you there, when you’re on the ship in icy states with big doors that can crush your hands and people who may not have the best balance who fall down, bang their head. That’s, to me, the dangerous part. But, the scary part for most people is going down to 6,000 PSI [pounds per square inch].”
This file image provided by OceanGate shows the Titan submersible being towed in Everett, Washington. (OceanGate Expeditions)
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