James Cameron knew on Monday Titanic sub had imploded and rescue was 'futile'

 James Cameron knew on Monday Titanic sub had imploded and rescue was 'futile'

Titanic film director James Cameron also told CNN that when he heard that OceanGate was planning the deep-sea submersible with a carbon fiber and titanium composite hull, he thought it was a horrible idea.

Last night Cameron said: "The only scenario I could think of that would explain this was an implosion - a shock wave event so powerful it actually destroyed a secondary system which has its own pressure vessel and battery , namely the transponder.” The (mother) ship uses it to track where the submarine is.

"It felt like sufficient validation that I could tell everyone around me that we had lost our comrades and I encouraged them all to raise a glass in their honor on Monday."

Cameron directed the hit 1997 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet and made 33 dives in the wreck of the Titanic.

The submersible had five people on board when it set sail on Sunday and headed to the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic. An hour and 45 minutes into the voyage, it lost contact with its mothership, prompting a days-long search. Then the US Coast Guard was contacted and later Canadian rescue workers also joined.

Cameron said he was submerged in a more powerful ceramic submarine than the ship used and built by Oceangate. Cameron added that the tragedy at sea came as no surprise to him as he questioned the carbon fiber hull of the submarine, called Titan.

"I tracked down information that was probably of military origin, although it could also be for research purposes - because there are hydrophones all over the Atlantic - and got confirmation that there is had loud noises indicating an implosion,” he explained. Cameron said he was "stricken to the core" by the result, adding: "I've been living with this for a few days now, as have some of my colleagues in the deep submergence community."

"I was on a boat myself when it happened on Sunday.

"The first time I heard about it was Monday morning. I immediately connected to my network - because it is a very small community of the group "Deep Submergence" - and in half a hour, I received the information that they had lost the communication follow-up at the same time.

"Then over the next few days I watched all this type of research, everyone running around with their hair on fire, knowing it was futile, hoping I was wrong, but deep down I knew it. It wasn't me.

Cameron said when he heard that OceanGate was planning the deep sea submersible with a carbon fiber and titanium composite hull, he wasn't sure it was a good idea.

"I thought that was a terrible idea. I would have liked to talk about it, but I assumed someone was smarter than me, you know, because I've never experienced this technology, but that sounded bad at first," he told Reuters. THURSDAY.

Cameron also said he wasn't the only deep-sea expert to figure out what happened before the news was confirmed and that it "certainly came as no surprise" when he was told about it. On Thursday he announced that all five people on board were dead.

On Thursday evening, OceanGate released a statement saying they believe tragedy has struck: "We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, sadly have been lost."

This was confirmed by the US Coast Guard at a press conference.

David Mearns, a salvage expert and friend of one on board, said "a landing frame and aft cover of the submersible" were recovered in the search area.

He said he received the information via WhatsApp from someone "directly connected to the vessels involved in the search for the OceanGate submersible."

Documents show that OceanGate has been warned repeatedly that the way it was designed could result in catastrophic security problems.

A major search operation was launched on Sunday, with ships and planes rushing into the site with equipment to support the search.

On Thursday, the US Coast Guard said an underwater robot dispatched by a Canadian ship had reached the seabed, while a French research institute said a deep-diving robot with cameras, lights and arms had also joined the operation.

The ship was about 435 miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland on a voyage to the wreck of the Titanic off the coast of Canada.