'Titanic' director James Cameron points out flaws in Titan Sub's design
"We've never had such an accident," Oscar-winning 'Titanic' director James Cameron said Thursday.
Mr. Cameron, a submersible expert, has dived dozens of times into the ship's deteriorating hulk and once dived into a tiny craft of his own design deep in the deepest recess of the planet.
In an interview, Mr Cameron called the alleged loss of five lives aboard the company's OceanGate submersible Titan as never seen by anyone involved in private ocean exploration.
< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0" >"There have never been any deaths at this kind of depth and certainly no implosions," he said.A deep-sea implosion occurs when the crushing pressures of the deep sea cause a hollow object to violently collapse inward. If the object is large enough to hold five people, Mr. Cameron said in an interview, "it will be an extremely violent event - like 10 cases of dynamite exploding."
In 2012, Mr. Cameron designed and piloted an experimental submersible in an area of the Pacific Ocean called Challenger Deep. Mr Cameron had not sought certification of the vessel's safety from maritime industry organizations that provide such services to many companies. experimental and its scientific mission, said Mr. Cameron. "I would never design a vehicle to pick up passengers without having it certified."
Mr. Cameron sharply criticized Stockton Rush, the managing director of OceanGate who piloted the submersible when it went missing on Sunday, for never having his tourist submersible certified as safe. He noted that Mr. Rush had called certification a barrier to innovation.
"I agree in principle," Mr. Cameron said. "But you can't take that position when you put paying customers in your submersible - when you have innocent guests who trust you and your statements" about vehicle safety.
As a design weakness in the Titan submersible and a possible warning sign for its passengers, Mr Cameron cited its construction with carbon fiber composites. The materials are widely used in the aerospace industry because they weigh much less than steel or aluminum, but pound for pound are stronger and stiffer.
The problem, said Mr Cameron, is that a carbon-fiber composite has "zero compressive strength" - which happens when an underwater vehicle sinks deeper and deeper into the abyss. and faces dizzying increases in water pressure. "That's not what it was designed to do."
The company, he added, used sensors in the Titan's hull to assess the condition of the carbon fiber composite hull. In its promotional material, OceanGate highlighted the sensors as an innovative feature for "hull health monitoring". Earlier this year, a university expert described the system as providing the pilot "enough time to stop the descent and return safely to the surface".
Unlike the company, Mr Cameron called it "a warning system" to let the pilot of the submersible know if "the hull is preparing to implode".
M. Cameron said the sensor array on the sub's hull was an inadequate solution to a design he considered inherently flawed. the car is low,” he said of the hull sensor array. "It's different."
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"We've never had such an accident," Oscar-winning 'Titanic' director James Cameron said Thursday.
Mr. Cameron, a submersible expert, has dived dozens of times into the ship's deteriorating hulk and once dived into a tiny craft of his own design deep in the deepest recess of the planet.
In an interview, Mr Cameron called the alleged loss of five lives aboard the company's OceanGate submersible Titan as never seen by anyone involved in private ocean exploration.
< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0" >"There have never been any deaths at this kind of depth and certainly no implosions," he said.A deep-sea implosion occurs when the crushing pressures of the deep sea cause a hollow object to violently collapse inward. If the object is large enough to hold five people, Mr. Cameron said in an interview, "it will be an extremely violent event - like 10 cases of dynamite exploding."
In 2012, Mr. Cameron designed and piloted an experimental submersible in an area of the Pacific Ocean called Challenger Deep. Mr Cameron had not sought certification of the vessel's safety from maritime industry organizations that provide such services to many companies. experimental and its scientific mission, said Mr. Cameron. "I would never design a vehicle to pick up passengers without having it certified."
Mr. Cameron sharply criticized Stockton Rush, the managing director of OceanGate who piloted the submersible when it went missing on Sunday, for never having his tourist submersible certified as safe. He noted that Mr. Rush had called certification a barrier to innovation.
"I agree in principle," Mr. Cameron said. "But you can't take that position when you put paying customers in your submersible - when you have innocent guests who trust you and your statements" about vehicle safety.
As a design weakness in the Titan submersible and a possible warning sign for its passengers, Mr Cameron cited its construction with carbon fiber composites. The materials are widely used in the aerospace industry because they weigh much less than steel or aluminum, but pound for pound are stronger and stiffer.
The problem, said Mr Cameron, is that a carbon-fiber composite has "zero compressive strength" - which happens when an underwater vehicle sinks deeper and deeper into the abyss. and faces dizzying increases in water pressure. "That's not what it was designed to do."
The company, he added, used sensors in the Titan's hull to assess the condition of the carbon fiber composite hull. In its promotional material, OceanGate highlighted the sensors as an innovative feature for "hull health monitoring". Earlier this year, a university expert described the system as providing the pilot "enough time to stop the descent and return safely to the surface".
Unlike the company, Mr Cameron called it "a warning system" to let the pilot of the submersible know if "the hull is preparing to implode".
M. Cameron said the sensor array on the sub's hull was an inadequate solution to a design he considered inherently flawed. the car is low,” he said of the hull sensor array. "It's different."
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