‘Titanic’ Director James Cameron Says He ‘Wouldn’t Have Gotten In’ OceanGate’s Titan Sub

Topline

One day after the Coast Guard confirmed the five passengers aboard OceanGate’s Titan submersible had perished from a “catastrophic” implosion, director James Cameron—who also descended to the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic for his 1997 blockbuster by the same name—said he never would have boarded the submersible, and criticized the company behind it for cutting corners.

Director James Cameron spoke out against the design of OceanGate’s Titan submersible, which imploded … [+] in its plunge to the wreck of the Titanic this week.

Key Facts

Cameron—who has descended to the wreck of the Titanic more than 30 times and has plunged to the deepest part of the Pacific, known as the Challenger Deep—told the BBC he was “very suspect of the technology” used to create the submersible, which relied on a gaming controller and just one button to descend to the seafloor.

Cameron criticized the company, whose late CEO Stockton Rush was one of the five passengers aboard the submersible, for failing to certify the Titan, saying they didn’t do so because “they knew they wouldn’t pass.”

OceanGate refused to comment on Cameron’s statement, telling Forbes the company has “no additional information to share” beyond a statement on Thursday saying the five passengers have “sadly been lost”—OceanGate had previously defended its submersible in a 2019 blog post, claiming a certification would not ensure passengers’ safety because “innovation often falls outside of the existing industry paradigm.”

Cameron’s comments come one day after he called out OceanGate in an ABC News interview for ignoring warnings about the submersible’s safety—including from industry professionals who warned of “catastrophic” outcomes in a 2018 letter—and for taking an experimental approach, saying the vessels he previously boarded adhered to the “gold standard.”

He is the latest explorer to voice criticism over the Titan submersible after it lost contact with its mothership, the Polar Prince, on Sunday: former Harvard University physics instructor Michael Guillen, who also traveled to the Titanic wreck, told U.K. outlet GB News the Titan was “designed primarily for tourism” as opposed to a vessel he boarded in 2000, which he called one “created by serious-minded people.”

News Peg

The U.S. Navy reportedly heard through its acoustic detection system what it believed to have been the sound of the Titan’s implosion just hours after its descent on Sunday, anonymous officials familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal Thursday night. The cause of the implosion remains unknown.

Contra

Rush had admitted in a 2021 interview with vlogger Alan Estrada he had “broken some rules” in designing the submersible, saying it was designed “with logic and good engineering.” Rush specifically alluded to the use of carbon fiber material used in the design, a lightweight material that’s been criticized, including by Cameron, who slammed OceanGate in an interview with Reuters for experimenting with substitutes to industry standards, such as steel or aluminum.

Key Background

After five days of a massive—and challenging—search for the missing submersible in a remote stretch of the Atlantic roughly 900 miles east of Cape Cod and as researchers feared the passengers had run out of oxygen, the U.S. Coast Guard District Northeast announced on Thursday a debris field had been discovered near the site of the Titanic. The Coast Guard later confirmed the debris field contained parts to the submersible, including two sections of its hull, prompting researchers to conclude the vessel suffered a “catastrophic” failure, likely the result of an implosion. OceanGate later stated the five passengers—including Rush, as well as British aviation mogul Hamish Harding, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet and British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman—had “sadly been lost.”

Topline

Key Facts

News Peg

Contra

Key Background

Further Reading