I am struck by the similarity of Titanic disaster itself: Cameron on Titan submersible tragedy

Director James Cameron
| Photo Credit: AP

Titanic filmmaker James Cameron has said he is struck by the similarities between the 1912 sinking of the iconic ship and the tragic death of a group of passengers aboard a submersible that was en route to see its remains. The Hollywood veteran, known for directing the 1997 feature film Titanic about the disaster, said many people in the deep-submergence engineering community were concerned about the submarine.

“A number of you know of the top players in the community even wrote letters to the company, saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and needed to be certified and so on.

“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 said in an interview with ABC News.

The filmmaker, who has been on 33 deep-sea dives himself to visit the Titanic’s wreckage site, said its “surreal” that a similar incident has taken place on the same site after over 100 years. “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 it’s just astonishing. It’s really quite surreal,” he added.

On Thursday, rescue teams found outer parts of the submersible near the site of the Titanic ship wreckage. OceanGate, the company that led the mission, said the 5 passengers are dead.