Titanic missing sub: How many times has James Cameron been down to the world's most famous wreck?

Director James Cameron has been speaking on the tragic events that led to five people dying after their submarine imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreck. Cameron, 68, famously directed the Oscar-winning film about the 1912 disaster and has frequently dived down to see the wreckage himself.

He has spoken bluntly in the wake of authorities confirming on June 22 that the five passengers on board to missing vessel are now presumed dead.

Those onboard are likely to have died instantly following an implosion that created a boom underwater.

Not only did he condemn the "prolonged" search for the sub after it lost contact, but he also said he "knew" the sub was sitting exactly under its last known position.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: "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 needed to be certified and so on.

"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 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 around all around the world. I think it's just astonishing, it's really quite surreal.

"I felt in my bones what had happened. I immediately got on the phone to some of my contacts in the deep submersible community. Within about an hour I had the following facts. They were on descent. They were at 3500 metres, heading for the bottom at 3800 metres.

"For the sub's electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously – sub's gone.

"We now have another wreck that is based on unfortunately the same principles of not heeding warnings."

How many times has James Cameron dived down to the Titanic wreck?

Cameron is part of The Explorer's Club which frequently takes part in high-risk expeditions, but the Titanic seems to be of particular fascination to the director.

James Cameron has visited the wreck 33 times on separate expeditions

He made his first trip in 1995 in order to capture footage for the 1997 box office smash, which went on to win 11 Oscars.

He has even written a book about his experiences, titled Exploring The Deep.