Officials have announced a grim ending to the missing OceanGate submarine that contained five passengers on a journey to visit the wreckage of the Titanic, 12,500 feet below the surface of the ocean.
US Coast Guard announced that debris from the Titan submersible that went missing on Sunday was discovered on the sea bed, approximately 1,600 feet from the hull of the Titanic. The debris indicated that the Titan submersible imploded on its way down to the sea floor, killing all five passengers. James Cameron, the director of the Titanic movie, has compared the tragedy of the OceanGate submersible with the events that led to the sinking of the Titanic.
"I'm struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night, and many people died as a result. For us, it's a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded," said Cameron to ABC. Cameron is referring to the many signs OceanGate's submersible wasn't at regulatory standard to be journeying at such depts of extreme pressure.
Many of these warnings, which included written letters to the company by submergence engineers warning passengers shouldn't be carried on Titan, were ignored by OceanGate.
"To take place at the same exact site with all the diving that's going on all around the world, I think it's just astonishing," Cameron said. "It's really quite surreal."
Paul-Henri "PH" Nargeolet, a passenger aboard the Titan that died, was mourned by Cameron, who said, "PH, the French legendary submersible dive pilot was a friend of mine. I've known PH for 25 years, and for him to have died tragically in this way is almost impossible for me to process."