James Cameron compares Titan sub tragedy to Titanic disaster: 'It's really quite surreal'

June 23 (UPI) -- Oscar-winning filmmaker and deep sea expert James Cameron says unheeded warnings played a role in both this week's implosion of the Titan submersible craft, which left five passengers dead, and the sinking of the Titanic, the ship they were hoping to visit on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Cameron has made 33 dives to visit the wreckage site of the luxury liner that hit an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing more than 1,500 people.

The ship was the subject of his classic 1997 movie starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Cameron told ABC News Thursday many people in the diving and engineering communities had repeatedly voiced their concerns about how safe Oceangate's passenger-carrying submersible vessel was before it imploded.

"I'm struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and, yet, he steamed up full speed into an ice field on a moonless night," Cameron said.

"And many people died as a result and for a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that's going on all around the world I think is just astonishing. It's really quite surreal."