‘The bathyscaphe was doomed’: ‘Titanic’ director James Cameron called the ‘Titan’s’ Achilles heel, which caused it to explode 06/24/2023, 09:30

A submarine owned by OceanGate exploded at the site where the famous passenger liner Titanic sank in 1912. The Canadian director, who directed the cult film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, watched the events emotionally. James Cameron said the bathyscaphe was not certified to work at great depths and was doomed.

Even before the tragedy, experts had expressed concern about the ship’s carbon fiber hull – the cylinder that housed the expedition members and the porthole. The company’s chief executive Stockton Rush, who was among the dead, had earlier admitted that the carbon fiber hull broke the rules but ignored the concerns of his own staff. As a result, the Titan cracked and shattered into small fragments due to the pressure of the water. Cameron gave a damning assessment of the bathyscaphe, criticizing its creators for moving away from proven technology in favor of innovation.

“There are three possible points of failure and the investigation will hopefully be able to answer the question of what exactly happened. The transparent window in the front was made of acrylic. I was told it was designed for a shallower depth than the submarine sank. She also had two small glass swim balls, which is a bad idea. But the weakest link was the carbon fiber bodywork. If I had to bet money on what caused the tragedy, the Achilles heel of the submarine was the composite cylinder, which was the main body with the people inside,” James said.

Concerns about the hull and window were also raised in court documents in 2018 by OceanGate’s former head of marine operations, David Lockridge. The statement said the observation deck is only designed for a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate intended to take passengers to a depth of 4,000 meters, the Daily Mail reports.

Shipbuilding expert Rob McCallum has advised OceanGate since it was founded in 2009. He repeatedly told Stockton Rush that the Titan had not been classified by an independent body and was unsafe. “You repeat the famous cry of the captain of the Titanic: ‘She is unsinkable.’ Until the submarine is classified and tested, it has not been proven suitable for commercial deep diving. I ask that you take the utmost care and be very conservative in the testing and sea trials. As much as I respect entrepreneurship and innovation, you are potentially putting the entire industry at risk,” McCallum was quoted as saying by the Mirror.

However, the specialist’s emails went unanswered, and when he tried to be persistent, the businessman’s lawyers threatened legal action.

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