Los Angeles, Jun 23 (IANS): James Cameron, the director of 'Titanic', has reacted to the deaths of the five passengers on board the Titan.

The director said that the diving community was "deeply concerned" about the submersible's safety even before Sunday's expedition, reports 'People' magazine.

He told ABC News, "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".

After reports discovered Titan debris was found, indicating the crew inside was dead, Cameron said he couldn't help but connect the circumstances of the presumed catastrophe to that of the 'Titanic'.

He said, quoted by 'People', "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".

"For us, it's a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded," the Canadian director surmised. "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."

Cameron, 68, is not only a filmmaker but an experienced diver, reportedly completing 33 trips to the ship's wreckage site in his life.