James Cameron compares OceanGate Titan tragedy to Titanic disaster

James Cameron, who made 33 trips to Titanic, grieved the submersible tragedy, which saw the loss of five lives after they quest to witness the sunk ship.

During an ABC News interview, the legendary director opened up about the devastating news, "People in the community were very concerned about this sub," Cameron recalled.

The Titanic filmmaker compared the follies of similarities between the famous passenger liner and the company, the submersible.

"A number of the top players in the deep submergence engineering community even wrote letters to the company, saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and that it needed to be certified."

"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 at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night, and many people died as a result," he continued.

"For us, it's 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 it's just astonishing. It's really quite surreal."

The 68-year-old is also mourning the loss of a friend who was onboard on the lost sub the Titanic explorer Paul-Henri "PH" Nargeolet.

"PH, the French legendary submersible dive pilot was a friend of mine," Cameron said. "You know, it's a very small community. I've known PH for 25 years, and for him to have died tragically in this way is almost impossible for me to process."