Director James Cameron Shares Eerie Similarities Between Titanic Captain and Stockton Rush
By Movieguide® Contributor
James Cameron, director of the movie THE TITANIC and experienced deep-sea explorer, shared his thoughts on the Titan Submersible tragedy that has claimed the attention of the world.
In an interview with the news channel Reuters, Cameron shared, “OceanGate shouldn’t have been doing what it was doing. I think that’s pretty clear. I wish I had been more vocal about it, but I think that I was unaware that they weren’t certified.”
Cameron personally took 33 dives down to the Titanic wreckage himself, and has experience diving as deep as the Marina Trench, which is three times deeper than the Titanic location. That voyage took place in a cylindrical submersible that he took seven years to build.
In critique over the tragedy, Cameron stated to NPR the eerie similarities between the captain of the Titanic and Oceangate founder and victim of the disaster, Stockton Rush.
“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet, he steamed up 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 it’s just astonishing, it’s really quite surreal,” Cameron said.
In an interview with Times Radio, co-founder of Oceangate Guillermo Söhnlein defended Rush against James Cameron’s comments.
“There are completely different opinions and views about how to do things, how to design submersibles, how to engineer them, how to build them, how to operate in the dives.” He said. “I know from firsthand experience that we were extremely committed to safety, and safety and risk mitigation was a key part of the company culture.”
Stockton Rush ignored expert’s pleas for Oceangate to forgo a certification process of the submersible, which many critics believe led to the tragic implosion.
Cameron had been invited on the Titan’s tragic journey this year but declined.
