‘Titanic’ director James Cameron blamed the carbon fiber composite hull of the OceanGate submersible for its tragic implosion, in an interview with George Stephanopoulosfrom ABC News.
Cameron said the hardware likely led to the “critical failure” which claimed the lives of five passengers aboard the craft. “You don’t use compounds for external pressure shells. They’re great for internal pressure shells, like scuba tanks, for example, but terrible for external pressure”
The director said the submersible’s designers relied on aeronautical engineering rather than submersion technology – an approach he said led to the implosion during a visit to the wreck of the Titanic.
“We all said it was, you know, a misconception and they failed certification. I think it was a critical failure,” he said.
Cameron argued that carbon fiber accumulates damage with every dive.. “They fail over time, each dive adds more and more microscopic damage. So yes, they operated the submarine safely on the Titanic last year and the year before that, but it doesn’t. was only a matter of time before he caught up to them.”
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who died in the submersible, previously said carbon fiber was preferable to alternatives such as titanium.
OceanGate said it had “successfully validated” Titan’s titanium and carbon fiber hull at a depth of 4,000 meters, according to a 2018 Facebook post.
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The submersible, nicknamed “Titan”, submerged on the morning of Sunday June 18. Tourists wanted to see the wreck of the Titanic, located in the North Atlantic.
The surface support ship, the Polar Prince, lost contact with him about an hour and 45 minutes later.according to the US Coast Guard.
A pilot and four passengers were part of the expedition. They are: Stockton Rush, President of OceanGate; billionaire Hamish Harding; Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, a Pakistani businessman and his son; It is Paul-Henry Nargeolet, former Commander of the French Navy It is considered one of the foremost experts on the sinking of the Titanic.
The submersible was reported missing about 700 kilometers south of São João da Terra Novacapital of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, according to Canadian authorities, in the region where the Titanic sank in 1912.
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