Film director James Cameron has called out officials over the Titanic sub rescue saga for not saying sooner that it had imploded on the day it went missing.
Contact was lost with the OceanGate submersible Titan on 18 June after it had taken five people towards the sunken wreckage of the Titanic.
What followed was an extensive search from the US and Canadian coastguards while the possibility that the five passengers in the sub would slowly run out of air hung over them.
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However, the finding of debris from the submersible appeared to confirm that the vessel had 'catastrophically imploded' and killed all aboard pretty much instantly.
This is the outcome experts talked about as the worst thing that could have happened but also one of the more likely results.
The sound of the Titan imploding had been picked up by the US navy, leading many to wonder if the days-long search and rescue operation had been a fool's errand trying to find people who were already known to be almost certainly dead.
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Meanwhile, Titanic film director James Cameron said he knew on Monday (19 June) that the submersible and all aboard were already gone after he'd been told about a 'loud bang' occurring at the moment the surface lost contact with the submarine.
Speaking on CNN, Cameron has called out the lack of announcement about the loud noise at the time the sub went missing for perpetuating a 'prolonged nightmarish charade' and giving 'false hope' to the families of the deceased.
He said: "Then I watched over the ensuing days this everybody running round with their hair on fire search knowing full well that it was futile.
"Hoping against hope I was wrong but knowing in my bones that I wasn't.
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"It certainly wasn't a surprise today, I just feel terrible for the families that had to go through all these false hopes that kept getting dangled as it payed out."
Five people were onboard: British billionaire Hamish Harding; French maritime expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet; Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman; and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
While the debris found in the ocean is consistent with the 'catastrophic implosion' now believed to have happened, there will now be an investigation to determine exactly how this happened.
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As much of the submersible's parts will be collected as possible to work out precisely what went wrong with the vessel.
Experts will be looking for potential breaks and ruptures in the sub to explain which part failed and caused the implosion.
However, depending on the strength of the implosion it could be very difficult to properly lay out a timeline of events.
Featured Image Credit: CNN /Becky Kagan Schott/OceanGateTopics: Titanic, World News, US News