Titan implosion an ‘extreme outlier’ in deep-sea exploration, says Cameron

Director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron says there should be more regulation for submersibles following the Titan disaster last month that left five people dead.

Acclaimed Titanic film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron says passenger submersibles should be more regulated following the OceanGate Titan disaster.

He says the exploration sector where he works has a proven track record of safely operating due to rigorous safety and testing standards, and those need to be upheld.

“I think there should be very specific regulations around treating any kind of passenger vehicle, which (Titan) was, … the same way that you would (treat) a ship that takes passengers,” Cameron said.

Cameron and his exploration mentor Joseph MacInnis were in Ottawa for a presentation on Cameron’s famed submersible the Deepsea Challenger, which is on exhibition at the Royal Canadian Geographic Society.

The Deepsea Challenger went through seven years of intensive testing, including pressure and disaster response training, prior to making manned deep-sea voyages.

Cameron said that as a filmmaker he could imagine all sorts of things to go wrong, including implosion, and reverse-engineered the vessel from there.

“We have over a half-century of a perfect safety record in the deep submergence community, actual exploration and actual research,” Cameron said.

“Even in tourist diving, we have millions of human hours inside subs, in tourist subs all over the world right now. No fatalities, no incidents, no deaths, no implosions, until today. This is an extreme outlier of a data point.”