The co-founder of OceanGate has hit back at Titanic director James Cameron, claiming he 'knows nothing' about the company and its submersible program.

Cameron 'is a very experienced ocean explorer and a sub guy himself, but knows nothing about Ocean Gate and that stuff,' ​Guillermo Söhnlein, a 58-year-old Argentine-American entrepreneur, told Insider.

Cameron, 68, who has made more than 30 deep sea dives to the Titanic wreck, has criticized Ocean Gate and its lack of safety procedures for the Titan sub - which disappeared on June 18, imploded, and killed all five members of its crew.

The media's whole spin on how unsafe this was is based on David Lockridge, Will Kohnen from the Marine Technology Society, Jim Cameron, who knows nothing about any of this stuff … and Karl Stanley. Four people Söhnlein, who co-founded the company with Stockton Rush in 2009, said.

After the high-profile tragedy, it emerged that Will Kohnen, chairman of the Marine Technology Society, had sent Rush a warning letter outlining how he felt the CEO was misleading the public about the Titan meeting industry safety standards.

Lockridge was fired as Ocean Gate's director of marine operations after raising concerns over a lack of non-destructive testing performed on the hull of the Titan.'

Submersible expert Stanley also spoke out after the disaster, explaining that he had ridden in the Titan during a test trip in the Bahamas in 2019 and was concerned about its safety.

'Stockton was designing a mouse trap for billionaires,' he said. But Söhnlein has remained loyal and dismissed the criticism as a 'vocal minority.'

'Over 15 years that company's probably employed like 200 and has dived dozens of people. And you're only hearing from four people,' he told Insider.

'Common sense seems to indicate these must be the vocal minority because there are a lot of other people that aren't speaking up who disagree with those four,' he added.

He also defended Stockton's decision to use carbon fiber for the sub's hull telling the publication: 'The world only had one foremost expert on using carbon fiber to go in the deep oceans and he's gone now.'

Rush died in the disaster, along with British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58; French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77; and British-Pakistani father and son Shahzada Dawood, 48, and Suleman Dawood, 19.

Cameron, who is a celebrated deep sea explorer as well as famed director, has previously said that the Titan's carbon fiber design was widely seen within the deep sea exploration community as being unsafe.

Söhnlein previously rejected Cameron's opinion telling Times Radio, 'One of the things Mr. Cameron said which was correct is that the deep sea exploration community is very small.

'We all know each other. I think in general we all respect each other.

'But as you would expect in this kind of community there are completely different opinions about how to do things - how to design submersibles, how to engineer them, how to operate in the dives.

'But one thing that's true of me, and every other expert that has been talking, is that none of us were involved in the design, engineering, or even testing of the subs.

'So it's impossible for anyone to speculate from the outside.'

Söhnlein said Cameron and others were wrong in calling Ocean Gate reckless.

'I was involved in the early phases of the overall development program, during our predecessor subs to Titan.

'And I know, from first-hand experience, that we were extremely committed to safety, and risk mitigation was a key part of the company culture.'

Yet Cameron has said there were several 'potential failure points' in the doomed Titan submersible - and a warning system probably alerted the five crew who perished shortly before the vessel imploded.

Cameron said the Titan had 'three potential failure points' and indicated that its 'Achilles heel' was the carbon fiber cylinder.

He added that the hull was broken into 'very small pieces' after Titan imploded when the hull fractured because of the pressure.

A warning system probably sounded an alert and the crew tried to ascend in the moment before the implosion, he added.

Source: https://ribdo.com/news/oceangate-expeditions-co-founder-vincent-savone-has-criticized-james-cameron-the-director-of-titanic-for-his-comments-about-the-companys-imploded-submersible-savone-said-that-cameron-knows-nothing-about-the-company-or-its-operations-and-that-his-comments-were-irresponsible