Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron said he received the information within 24 hours of the disappearance of the submersible Titan that it had imploded when it lost communication with its mothership.
“We got confirmation within an hour that there had been a loud bang at the same time that the sub comms were lost,” Mr Cameron, who directed the 1997 movie Titanic, said.
“A loud bang on the hydrophone. Loss of transponder. Loss of comms. I knew what happened. The sub imploded,” he said, adding that he told colleagues in an email on Monday, “We’ve lost some friends,” and, “It’s on the bottom in pieces right now”.
The submersible carrying five people to the Titanic imploded near the site of the shipwreck and killed everyone on board, authorities said on Thursday. The Titan launched on Sunday around 8am EST and was reported overdue that afternoon about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland.
But after one hour and 45 minutes, the craft lost contact with its mothership, the Polar Prince.
Those on board were British billionaire Hamish Harding, Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistan-born businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, and OceanGate Expedition’s chief executive Stockton Rush.
“This was a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” said rear admiral John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District, adding that the bodies of the victims may never be recovered from the Atlantic.
The decorated director’s statement comes amid reports that secret US Navy underwater microphones detected the Titan sub’s implosion several days ago, but the information was released on Thursday.
The Navy used a top secret acoustic detection system to search for any sign of the OceanGate Expeditions submersible soon after it was reported missing on Sunday, a US defence official told The Wall Street Journal.
Hellbound and Down 