On Thursday, the US Coast Guard announced that all five passengers in the Titan submersible that went missing near the Titanic shipwreck site were presumed dead after an implosion.
For James Cameron, the Titanic film director and deep submergence explorer, the Coast Guard’s statement confirmed what he’d suspected earlier this week.
James appeared on CNN Thursday night where he spoke with Anderson Cooper about the Titan submersible and revealed that, on Monday, he began believing that it had imploded.
Though the submersible went missing on Sunday, James said he was on a ship at the time and didn’t hear about it until Monday morning. He then contacted his deep submergence community and began hypothesizing an implosion may have occurred based on the information he was receiving.
Later on Monday, James said he got confirmation of “some kind of loud noise consistent with an implosion event.”
“Then I watched over the ensuing days this whole sort of ‘everybody running around with their hair on fire’ search, knowing full well that it was futile – hoping against hope that I was wrong but knowing in my bones that I wasn’t,” he continued.
Given his presumed understanding of the implosion days ago, James also noted that he feels “terrible” for the families that experienced “false hopes” during the search and rescue efforts.
It’s worth noting that James clarified to Anderson that the information he received earlier this week was from “credible sources” but was “hearsay.”
Earlier on Thursday, James also appeared on ABC News, where he compared the Titan submersible catastrophe to the Titanic wreckage.