Image: ANTHONY WALLACE (AFP)
The Canadian filmmaker, who also co-owns submarine maker Triton Submarines, told Reuters on Thursday (local time) that he had long considered the construction of the mini-submarine’s hull risky.
When he heard that Oceangate was making a deep-sea submersible with a carbon fiber and titanium composite hull, Cameron said he was skeptical. “I thought that was a horrible idea. I wish I’d spoken up, but I figured someone was smarter than me because I’ve never experimented with this technology,” said Cameron, who co-wrote Titanic. 1998) had won three Oscars.
The “Titan” is likely to have imploded shortly after the start of the descent to the wreck of the “Titanic” in the North Atlantic. All five people on board were killed. The cause of the implosion is not yet clear, but critics may have been right in warning that a carbon fiber and titanium hull would lead to delamination and microscopic water infiltration, Cameron said.
The 68-year-old suspected that the boat had imploded at the time the mother ship lost communication with the submersible after an hour and 45 minutes. “I knew what happened. The submarine imploded,” Cameron said. He added that he told his colleagues in an email on Monday: “We’ve lost some friends.” He also wrote: “It is now in pieces on the ground.”
However, in the past few days he too had harbored the “unnatural hope” that his fears were wrong, Cameron emphasized to CNN. “But deep down I knew that wasn’t the case.”
Cameron himself has dived more than 30 times to the wreckage of the Titanic that sank in 1912. In 1995, Cameron organized twelve dive trips with Mir submarines and diving robots to show original footage of the real “Titanic” for his film drama, which won a total of eleven Oscars and starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The film combines these with flashbacks to the maiden voyage of the luxury liner.
Source: Nachrichten
