Titanic director James Cameron compares missing sub to doomed ship

“Titanic” director James Cameron said he was “struck by the similarity” of the tragedy of the OceanGate Titan to the Titanic disaster.

Cameron, 68, told ABC News that he had made 33 dives to the Titanic wreck and had “calculated that I’ve spent more time on the ship than the captain did back in the day.”

He noted that he is a submersible designer himself and had created a sub that was capable of traveling to the deepest parts of the ocean, which is three times deeper than the location of the Titanic.

Cameron said that “many people in the community were very concerned about this sub” and that “a number 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.”

He compared the sinking of the Titan to the Titanic disaster, saying that “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.”

“And 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 is just astonishing. It’s really quite surreal,” he concluded.

The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed Thursday that a debris field is the missing Titanic tourist submersible that was carrying five passengers. All five on board are presumed dead.

The five crew members on board the Titan were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman turned adventurer Hamish Harding; father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who are members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families; and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy officer and leading Titanic expert.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”

Cameron’s “Titanic” grossed $600.78 million during its initial run in the late ‘90s. After the success of “Titanic,” Cameron continued to work on several other iconic movies, including “Avatar.” His previous works include “The Terminator” and “Aliens.”