James Cameron

Ocean Gate shouldn't have been doing what it was doing I think that's pretty clear I wish I had been more vocal about that but I think I was unaware that they weren't certified because I wasn't really studying it I wasn't really interested Stockton Rush asked me if I wanted to go out there and dive this season you know I wasn't interested this poor I mean his father and son on Father's Day you know paid half a million dollars to go down on this thing only you know it's just it's just tragic and it's horrific and it's unnecessary and by the way it's not lost on me as as somebody who studied the meaning of Titanic it's it's greater meaning to us you know historically and societally that it's about warnings that were ignored that ship's lying at the bottom of the ocean not because of the nature of its steel or the nature of its compartments but just because of bad seamanship the captain was warned there were icebergs ahead it was a moonless night and he plowed ahead for whatever reason I think there was some greed there was some glory in it he had a he had a boot up his rear from Jay Bruce Ismay to get into New York on time or or early so they'd have a headline which I show in the in the film you know and here we are again and at the same place you know now there's one wrecked line next to the other wreck for the same damn reason search search four days of search they're searching everywhere they're they were running around with their hair on fire the sub was right where it was it was literally on the sea floor below its last known position which is the first place you look in the search is the last known position you don't go running around all over the landscape with planes and Trains and Automobiles searching right it was right where it was when it imploded and I knew that's where they were going to find it we'd never expected to see a scenario like this you know we we may go into hazardous environments like hydrothermal vents or even to a wreck like Titanic or Bismarck or some of the other wreck sites which are dangerous from an entanglement standpoint or a collapse a structural collapse standpoint but you never worry about the vehicle the platform that you're in you know and you certainly don't worry about employ there's never been an implosion of a vehicle with people in it and so I think this I don't want to say a blind side of the community because there was a lot of concern and by the community I mean people who operate subs and build subs for a living there was a lot of concern about this outfit and this sub a lot of concern even to the extent that I wasn't involved in it because I was making Avatar 2 at the time but a lot of them got together and wrote a letter to uh to Ocean Gate and said you have to certify you cannot take people down it's irresponsible and it could lead to catastrophe