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Oscar-winning "Titanic director" James Cameron is weighing in on the Titan submersible tragedy saying, "I'm struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself" and noting how many people had actually raised concerns about the sub and how what they were doing was too experimental.
Transcript
00:00Oscar-winning Titanic director James Cameron is weighing in on the Titan's submersible tragedy
00:05that appeared to have claimed the lives of four passengers and its pilot while on a Titanic expedition.
00:11While speaking to ABC News, Cameron said he was struck by the similarity of the tragedy to the Titanic disaster
00:17and noted how many people had actually raised concerns about the sub and how what they were doing was too experimental.
00:23I'm struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship.
00:34He continued, and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many died as a result.
00:41Cameron noted he's a submersible designer himself and that he understands the challenges of making such a craft work safely and successfully
00:48and defended the practice of deep-sea dives as a whole.
00:52It's absolutely critical for people to really get the take-home message from this, from our effort here, is deep submergence diving is a mature art.
01:04The safety record is the gold standard, absolutely. Not only fatalities, but no accidents.
01:09Of course, what happened to the Titan is the nightmare that we've all lived with. We've lived with it in the back of our minds.
01:15Speaking to BBC News, Cameron added that he knew the sub was doomed soon after the news of it vanishing first broke.
01:22I felt in my bones what had happened. For the sub's electronics to fail and its communication system to fail and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously, sub's gone.
01:32Cameron's 1997 box office hit Titanic heavily showcased footage of the actual wreck site and the use of submersibles to explore the remains of the ship.
01:41The U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday the missing sub imploded during its dive near the wreckage site and that all five aboard were killed instantly.
01:48The assessment was based on a search and rescue team finding debris from the Titan on the ocean floor.
01:54For more on Cameron's thoughts, head to THR.com.
01:57And for the latest entertainment news and updates, keep watching The Hollywood Reporter News.
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