By Jill Lawless
LONDON (AP) --"Titanic" director James Cameron says the search operation for a deep-sea tourist sub turned into a "nightmarish charade" that prolonged the agony of the families of the passengers.
Cameron told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Friday that he "felt in my bones" that the Titan submersible had been lost soon after he heard it had lost contact with the surface during its descent to the wreckage of the ocean liner at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
He said focus in the media over the next few days about the submersible having 96 hours of oxygen supply — and that banging noises had been heard — were a "prolonged and nightmarish charade."
"That was just a cruel, slow turn of the screw for four days as far as I'm concerned," he said. "Because I knew the truth on Monday morning."
The Titan launched at 8 a.m. on Sunday, and was reported overdue that afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John's, Newfoundland. On Thursday, U.S. Coast Guards said debris had been found on the ocean bed. Authorities said all five people aboard the submersible died when the vessel imploded.
Cameron, who has made more than 30 dives to the wreckage of the Titanic, said he knew an "extreme catastrophic event" had happened as soon as he heard the submersible had lost navigation and communications during its descent.
"For the sub's electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously — sub's gone," he told the British broadcaster.
"For me, there was no doubt. I knew that sub was sitting exactly underneath its last known depth and position, and that's exactly where they found it. There was no search. When they finally got an ROV down there that could make the depth, they found it within hours. Probably within minutes."
The filmmaker has been an oceanography enthusiast since childhood and has made dozens of deep-sea dives, including one to the deepest point on Earth — the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.
Cameron said that "one of the saddest aspects of this is how preventable it really was."
"We now have another wreck that is based on, unfortunately, the same principles of not heeding warnings," he said.
Deep-sea explorers have voiced concerns about OceanGate Expeditions' Titan submersible, saying it was too experimental to carry passengers.
OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein told Times Radio that chief executive Stockton Rush, who was one of those onboard the Titan, was "extremely committed to safety."
"He was also extremely diligent about managing risks, and was very keenly aware of the dangers of operating in a deep ocean environment," said Söhnlein , who no longer works for OceanGate.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
Weinstein,... Read More