“I wish I could talk”: director James Cameron from the first moment suspected the manufacture of a submarine

Director James Cameron said this Thursday that when he heard that OceanGate was making a carbon fiber and titanium hull submarine, he thought “it was a terrible idea.” Cameron also said that he knew from the start that the Titan had exploded.

“I thought it was a terrible idea. I wish I could talk, but I assumed that someone would be smarter than me, because I never used this technology, but it seemed bad to me, ”said the director of the film Titanic. to the agency Reuters after confirming that the submerged Titan suffered a “catastrophic explosion” that killed all five people on board.

James Cameron speaks with knowledge of the facts, he once became an explorer of the deep sea in the 90s when he did research for the Oscar-winning Titanic, and has already made dozens of expeditions. In addition, he is a co-owner of Triton Submarines, a manufacturer of underwater vehicles for tourism and scientific research.

The reasons for the explosion of the Titan submersible remain to be determined, but Cameron believes the critics were right in warning that the carbon fiber and titanium hull would allow the layers to separate and allow microscopic water to seep in, which would gradually and over time lead to an accident on the ship. .

In accordance with Reutersseveral industry experts and an OceanGate employee sounded the alarm in 2018, criticizing OceanGate for not being certified and operating an experimental vessel.

The US Coast Guard said on Thursday that the submersible exploded during an expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic, but it will take time to conduct a final investigation.

This was reported by experts of the US Navy. Wall Street Journal that “an anomaly such as an explosion or explosion was recorded in the area where the submarine Titan was when communication was lost”, which James Cameron knew from the beginning.

The director said Reuters that his sources reported identical information and that he knew the submarine had been lost from the start, suspecting that it had exploded at the moment when the mother ship lost contact and the ability to track the location of the submarine, 1 hour and 45 minutes after the start of the mission.

“About an hour later, we received confirmation that at the time of the loss of communication there was a strong explosion. The roar of a hydrophone. Loss of communication. I heard what happened. The underwater vehicle exploded,” said the American director.

In accordance with ReutersOn Monday, Cameron even sent out an email to some colleagues saying, “We’ve lost some friends” and “Now everything is at the bottom.”

For Cameron, the death of the five people aboard the Titan marks the first death in the industry, which typically manufactures durable hulls from adjacent materials such as steel, titanium, ceramic or acrylic.

“We welcome innovation, right? But we must not use experimental cars with passengers who pay [a experiência] and who are not ocean engineers,” the director criticized.

“Now one shipwreck next to another for the same damn reason,” Cameron stressed, recalling that both in the case of the Titanic and the Titan, there were warnings that were ignored.