James Cameron, the director of the film Titanic, himself a passionate marine explorer with years of deep-sea diving experience, complained on Thursday that repeated “warnings” about the safety of the submarine, which suffered a catastrophic decompression a few hundred meters from the sea, had been ignored. carcass of the infamous ocean liner, as a result of which five people lost their lives, among them “his friend” Paul Henri Narzolet, a “legendary” submarine captain, with whom he had known “25 years”.

The deep-sea Titan had caused much concern in the very small underwater exploration community, recalled the director, who had personally dived into the wreck several times while filming the 1997 film that became a global hit, sweeping the Academy Awards — securing a total of 11 golden statuettes. .

The 68-year-old Canadian, who is passionate about deep-sea diving, said he was “amazed” at the similarity of the new disaster to the sinking of the ocean liner in 1912, when 1,500 lives were lost.

“I am appalled by the similarity to the disaster of the Titanic, when the captain had been repeatedly warned that there was ice ahead of the ship, yet he sailed full speed ahead into an area of ​​icebergs on a moonless night,” Mr Cameron said during an interview with American television network ABC News.

It is “a very similar tragedy, in which warnings were ignored” and unfolded “in the same location”: this is “unbelievable”, insisted the director of the film Abyss. “It’s truly surreal.”

The US Coast Guard announced Thursday that the OceanGate deep-sea vessel, missing since Sunday in the North Atlantic, suffered a “catastrophic decompression” in the depths of the ocean, adding that it believed the five people on board were dead.

The risk of any submarine depressurizing is always a “front-line” concern in its construction, stressed Mr Cameron, who in 2012 became the first person to dive at great depth in a submarine he personally helped design.

It is “a nightmare that everyone who enters this field lives with”, he explained, while insisting on the generally very high level of safety of the field of underwater exploration.

But “many in the community were very concerned about this OceanGate deep-sea vessel,” he said. “Some of the most important players in the community, engineers specializing in diving at great depths, had even addressed letters to the company, to say that what it was doing was too experimental to carry passengers.”

From the beginning of the investigations, information has come to light that exposes OceanGate for negligence in the construction of the tourist submersible.

James Cameron mourned the death of Paul Henri Narzolet, a French explorer nicknamed “Mr Titanic” because of his repeated dives on the wreck.

“It is impossible for me to digest that he met a tragic death in this way,” he said.