James Cameron has compared the tragic loss of the submersible Titan to the very thing that may have led the Titanic to its own demise, overconfidence that led to disaster.

"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 up full speed into an ice field on a moonless night," Cameron said. "And many people died as a result and for us very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site."

Hollywood film director James Cameron, who directed the 1997 movie Titanic,  told  the team who built the submersible which imploded with the loss of five lives had "cut corners".

OceanGate, the parent company of the Titan sub, "didn't get certified because they knew they wouldn't pass".

"I was very suspect of the technology that they were using. I wouldn't have gotten in that sub," he said.

Cameron has completed 33 submersible dives to the Titanic wreck.

Titan was built from carbon fibre and titanium.

In 2012 Cameron used a different technology for the Deepsea Challenger submersible expedition in the Pacific, which took him down to 10,912m (35,800ft), the deepest known oceanic trench.

The Titanic wreck is 3,810m (12,500ft) down.

Cameron said that when he learned the sub had lost both its navigation and communication at the same time he immediately suspected a disaster.

"I felt in my bones what had happened. For the sub's electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously - sub's gone."