James Cameron has revealed that the US Coast Guard investigation into the Titan submersible has still not spoken to him despite offering himself as an expert witness a year ago.
Cameron, who directed the 1997 hit. Titanic has made 33 dives to the wreckage of the famous ship in the North Atlantic Ocean, near where OceanGate’s Titan ship imploded with five people on board in June 2023.
Cameron made the comments in a 60 minutes interview on Sunday and claimed that U.S. Coast Guard officials had excluded him from the ongoing investigation.
“I volunteered for the Coast Guard investigative committee,” Mr. Cameron said.
‘They should invite me but they don’t. Why listen to a scientist? he said.
“I think they want to do things their way and, frankly, I think they have egg on their face and don’t want outside opinions.”
“That’s just my interpretation.”
Film director James Cameron (pictured) said the OceanGate mission should never have taken place
Cameron said rescuers would never find the men who died on the submarine and said false hopes were raised that there would be survivors (pictured, remains recovered from the Titan submersible).
The Titan submersible disappeared two hours into its journey en route to the wreckage of the Titanic.
On board were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman, and legendary Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who is also a friend of Cameron.
Cameron said the entire OceanGate mission should never have happened in the first place.
“These guys broke the rules,” Cameron told 60 Minutes on Sunday.
‘It’s that easy. They should not have been legally allowed to carry passengers.’
Despite several investigations, the victims’ relatives still do not know how the tragedy occurred.
Cameron said OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush (pictured) should have heeded safety warnings before deploying the submersible.
The disappearance of the submersible sparked a massive, multi-day search by the U.S. Coast Guard with the help of Canadian authorities.
The wreckage of the submarine, including its tail cone, was found about 490 meters from the Titanic’s hull on June 22, and the suspected human remains were recovered days later.
Cameron said that rather than relying on his experience, researchers appear unwilling to consult the knowledge he gained from visiting the wreck 33 times.
The adventurer criticized the official response when the submarine lost contact, especially talks about a rescue effort, revealing his theory that an “implosion event” heard by navy ships at the start of the multinational operation had already confirmed that the who were on board had died.
“I mean my jaw literally dropped wider and wider every day because they never warned everyone,” he said.
Everyone running with their hair on fire when we knew where the submarine was.
‘But no one could admit that they didn’t have the means to go down and look.
‘So they were running all over the surface and the whole world was waiting with bated breath talking about 96 hours of oxygen.
‘We all knew they were dead.
“We had already raised a glass, you know, to toast our fallen comrades on Monday night.”
The tourist submarine bound for the Titanic (pictured) only had 96 hours of life support installed
Mr Cameron said investigators had not consulted him to help with their investigations, even after he volunteered (pictured, remains of the submersible recovered after it was found at the bottom of the ocean).
Cameron said he does not believe the Coast Guard was dishonest in its search efforts, but that they were “unnecessarily” withholding information from the families involved.
“I don’t think they lied,” he said.
‘I think they went through a procedure that was torture for the family.
‘They just didn’t reveal it. Naval intelligence informed them that an implosion event had been traced to the coordinates of the Titanic wreck site.
Cameron said he believed charges should be filed, but believes the person primarily responsible died in the submersible disaster.
“I think there should be some changes,” he said.
‘They had no classification. In theory, they should not have been legally allowed to carry passengers.
‘Yes, I think the tragedy is that (Mr Rush) took others with him.
‘HWe should have listened to the warnings.’
Cameron said he plans to honor his late friend, Nargeolet, by returning to the Titanic once again.
“We have plans to build a submarine that can reach 4,000 meters, and we will do that, and I may even go back to the Titanic in that submarine, just to show that if it’s done right, it can be done safely,” he said. .
A coveted spot on the doomed Titanic voyage cost passengers $250,000 each.
