Why Did James Cameron Compare Submersible Tragedy To Titanic Sinking?

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A "catastrophic pressure implosion" killed all five passengers aboard the Titan submersible, the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday, grimly solving a mystery that had puzzled the public all week.

James Cameron was also aboard an unauthorised experimental submersible in  2012. But how did he survive?

However, some pundits weren't surprised, including filmmaker and deep-sea explorer James Cameron. The director of Titanic criticizes the safety of the ship, responsible for exploring the remains of the Titanic in the depths of the North Atlantic, comparing the cause of the accident to the historic disaster of the liner.

In a series of television interviews, Cameron said he had suspected all week that the Titan had imploded on Sunday. (A senior Navy official confirmed to NPR that an acoustic monitoring system picked up such noises Sunday afternoon.)

The five passengers in aboard the Titan submarine are after a "catastrophic implosion". 'death'

Cameron told ABC News he believed the Titan's hull was beginning to crack under the pressure and that its internal sensors warned passengers of this.

"We know from the community that they dropped their climbing weights and went up to deal with an emergency," he said.

Titanic's director is no stranger to deep-sea exploration, having completed 33 dives on the wreck and even crediting the fact that he spent more time on the Titanic than its own captain a century ago.

Feet he spent seven years building.

"I think the job of the explorer is to go deeper into the human experience and then come back and tell that story", he told NPR this year. . .

Cameron and many other members of the deep diving community have long been concerned about the safety of the vessel and OceanGate's experimental approach, a he said Thursday, lamenting that the company had ignored calls from experts to undergo a standard certification process.

"I'm struck by the resemblance to the Titanic disaster itself, before the captain was repeatedly warned "It hit the ice on a moonless night and crashed into an ice field, killing many people", Cameron said. "And that a very similar tragedy, where the warnings were ignored, happened in the exact same place, with all the dives that are happening in the world, I find it incredible, it's really quite surreal ."

Cameron stressed that deep diving is "a mature art", with very few accidents since its beginnings in the 1960s and a record of even better security. Today, that's largely thanks to the certification protocols that nearly all of these vehicles follow, except for this one.

Clearly OceanGate "shouldn't have done what it did," he told Reuters, adding that he had accepted an invitation from CEO Stockton Rush to go dive with them this season.

Cameron called OceanGate's use of a carbon fiber hull "fundamentally flawed" and said he warned another company he a few years ago not to accept the same design principle. He said he was sorry he didn't talk more this time.

"Now there's one shipwreck next to another", he said, "for the same goddamn reason. " ."

Cameron was convinced the vessel had imploded on Sunday

Cameron told CNN he was on a boat himself on Sunday, so he didn't learn of the boat's disappearance until Monday morning.

He said he immediately made a few calls to his network and within about half an hour discovered that the Titan had lost communication and tracking at the same time.

"The only thing I could imagine Scenario." Remember, this could explain that it was an implosion, a shock wave event so powerful that it actually disabled a secondary system that had its own pressure vessel and source of battery power, which is the transponder the ship uses to know where the submarine is," Cameron said.

Later that day, Cameron received other information, "which was probably of military origin, although it may indicate, 'There has been an investigation.' There was a loud noise on Sunday, suggesting an implosion.

"That felt like enough validation for me to let my whole soul circle know that we said "We lost our comrades and I encouraged everyone to raise a glass to him on Monday".

Cameron said it was hard to watch the frantic search unfold over the next few days, knowing it was hopeless, but hoping he was wrong. He especially cares about the families who have had to go through this ordeal.

The deep sea community is small, Cameron pointed out. He says he knows Paul-Henri Nargeolet, the "legendary" French dive pilot who was one of five people on board for 25 years.

"Tragic for him. "It's almost impossible for me to die like this," she added.

Cameron's safety concerns echo those of other experts

Cameron reiterated concerns that others from within and beyond OceanGate had been raising as far back as 2018, namely about the vessel's carbon fiber hull and the company's decision not to have it certified by a third-party agency.

"I think it was unconscionable that this group did not go through that rigorous process," he told CNN.

He told the BBC he believed they hadn't done so because "they knew they wouldn't pass."

OceanGate said in a 2019 blog post that the certification process only assessed the vessels themselves — not operational safety, which it took seriously. It also said regulation was preventing innovation, echoing comments Rush told Smithsonian Magazine that same year.

Cameron said he personally never believed in the sort of carbon fiber cylindrical hull that the company used, telling Reuters it was a "horrible idea" that "just sounded bad on its face."

Cameron echoed concerns expressed by others inside and outside OceanGate since 2018, particularly regarding the vessel's carbon fiber hull and the company's decision not to have it certified by an outside agency.

"I think it was inconceivable that this group would not go through this process rigorous," he told CNN.

He told the BBC he didn't think so because they "knew that they wouldn't pass".

OceanGate said in a 2019 blog post that the certification only assessed the vessels themselves, not the safety operational, which was taken seriously. He also said regulation stifles innovation, echoing comments Rush told Smithsonian Magazine the same year.

Cameron said he had personally never believed in the type of cylindrical carbon fiber helmets. the company used, telling Reuters it was a "terrible idea" that "just seemed bad at first glance".

"Back then we all knew that there was a risk of delamination and a progressive danger.” “Over time, failure occurs with microscopic water ingress and… what is called cyclic fatigue,” he added "And we knew that if the sub passed the pressure test, it wouldn't fail the first dive...but it would fail over time, which is insidious. You can't do that with steel or titanium."

Cameron told ABC News that implosion risk "is a top priority for our engineers."

Al To The submersible that would eventually lead to the Challenger Deep (the deepest part of the Mariana Trench), Cameron said his team worked on a computer model of the hull for more than three years before they even built it, not to mention test it under pressure. say again.

Competition to immerse yourself in Challenger Deep (mission abandoned later).

"I have understood those boys said..." . 'Someone is going to die in this submarine or in a submarine like this.'" Cameron said.

Titanic dives can be dangerous no matter the vessel

Comparing OceanGate to its Titanic dives is like "apples and oranges," Cameron told ABC News.

 

He dived with Russian submersibles, he said he used "very, very well understood design methods" and had an "impeccable operational record" throughout his career.

Although he always had faith in the ship, he recognized that the wreck of the Titanic is a hostile and dangerous place to dive.

“They have this eight-story, ten-story building with metal structures protruding,” he explained. "It's a twisted mess, you can get tangled up."

Cameron said he always uses a two-sub system, so if the one of the captured vessels was there, the others would be there to help manage the situation.

She did her best to prepare for her challenger deep dive of 7 miles to prepare in the sea, which broke records, as he explained to NPR in 2013.

On this expedition, he had to lower his submersible with two 536-pound weights, spend about three hours on the ocean floor, then remove the weights to get back up.

Cameron said it's always a sigh of relief when things work out as they should.

" We treated it like a space mission, and you." "I have to do a lot of redundancy in the design," he told NPR's Melissa Block. "So I wasn't surprised when it worked. But you're still a bit relieved because the alternative isn't pretty."

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Answered one year ago Christina  Berglund	Christina Berglund